|jle:t for the f ounfcaHjowj. 

A SERMON, ,S1 

Doctrinal anti historical, 
DELIVERED AT THE EE-DEDICATION" 

OF THE 

PEESBYTEEIAX CHUECH 

OF BLOOMFIELD, X. J.. 

On Sabbath Morning and Afternoon, Dec. 18, 1853. 

BY 

REV. JAMES MANNING SHERWOOD, 

PASTOR OF THE CHURCH, 

OEitf) an Sppmoxi of historical iHrtnorantra, 

BY THE 

REV. STEPHEN DODD, 

i 

PUBLISHED BY BEQUEST, 



NEW YORK: 
PUBLISHED BY M. W. DODD, 
Cor, Spruce St. axd City Hall Square, 

1854 




/* 



LC Control Number 




tmp96 029079 



Blovmfield, Dec. 22, 1853. 

Rev. J. M. Sherwood : 

Respected and Beloved Pastor : — Trie under- 
signed beg leave respectfully to request for publication a copy of 
your discourse, delivered Sabbath, Dec. 18th, on the occasion of 
the re-dedication of our Sanctuary. The very unusual interest 
which it excited in our minds, the value of it as a matter ot 
history, and the good which we believe it cannot fail to accom- 
plish, if given to the public in a permanent form, seem to be rea- 
sons conclusive to justify us in making this request. 

With assurances of our highest regard, 

"We are yours, &c. 



Z. B. DODD, 


WARREN S. BALDWIN, 


ELIPHALET HALL, 


JASON CRANE, 


CALEB BALDWIN, 


HORACE PIERSON, 


DANIEL DODD. 


SILOS W. STILES, 


STEPHEN MORRIS, 


D. PARES, 


IRA DODD, 


J. K. OAEES, 


SIMEON BALDWIN. 


M. W, DODD, 


BETHUEL WARD, 


WM. J. WILLIAMSON, 


HERMAN CADMUS, 


D. W. SMITH, 


JOSEPH COLLINS, 


THOMAS TAYLOR, 


C. D. BALDWIN, 


MARK W. BALL, 


E. D. WARD. 


NATHANIEL H. BALDWIN, 


THOMAS SPEAR. 


J. H. RUNDELL, 


ISAAC DODD, 


WM. JLNKLNS, 


ISRAEL C, WARD. 


E, M. DODD. 



NOTE, 



It is due to the Author to say, that the following Discourse was 
one of his ordinary pulpit preparations, and is indebted for any 
special interest it may have or claim to publication, to the occa- 
sion, and the history which it contains. Faulty as he knows it to 
be as a composition, it could not be materially changed without 
recasting it entire, and is therefore published just as it was 
delivered, adding a few notes to supply in part its defects, and 
amplifying one or two thoughts somewhat. As some exception 
was taken to the language used on a point or two, in giving 
it a more public and permanent form, such language has been 
chosen as he thinks can justly offend no one, while it retains the 
essential facts of impartial history. Greatly interested and in- 
structed himself by the history of God's dealings with this people, 
it is his hope and prayer that this imperfect sketch may be blessed 
to the edification and encouragement of his people. 

Bloomfield, January, 1854. 

(4) 



Ifrttttm. 



PAKT I.-DOCTBINAL. 



M If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do!" — 
Psalm xi. 3. 

A wise Builder will look well to the foundations 
of the edifice which he has undertaken to erect. 
The vaster and weightier that edifice is to be, the 
deeper and broader will he seek to lay the founda- 
tions. If he means that building to stand and to 
perpetuate his fame as a mechanic, he will regard 
no amount of time and pains and money expended 
to secure a solid and enduring basis, as wasted. 
For, he knows that in vain is the massive super- 
structure carried up ; in vain are costly and 
durable materials employed ; in vain is the skill 

(5) 



6 . PLEA FOR THE OLD FOUNDATIONS. 

of the architect and all the appliances of the most 
finished art in adorning and beautifying it, if the 
foundations be frail, or of decaying material. 

A wise Statesman, anxious to achieve and per- 
petuate the prosperity of a nation, will look well 
to the " foundations" of the thing. He is too 
sagacious to suppose for a moment that such a 
condition can be secured by artificial causes — by 
a happy hit — or by sleight of hand in turning the 
wheel of Fortune — or by spreading his sails to the 
popular breeze. He knows the fallacy of all such 
hopes ; that all success gained in this way is at 
best uncertain and short-lived. He is too shrewd 
an observer of " men and things" to risk his repu- 
tation and aims on a policy so blind and pre- 
carious. He knows that to reach such an end, 
his policy must be an enlightened, liberal, sub- 
stantial, and comprehensive policy, based on 
sound principles of political economy, and on a 
thorough knowledge and appreciation of the times 
in which he lives, and of the genius and institu- 
tions of the people whom he seeks to guide and 
serve. He knows that the foundations of all real 
and permanent prosperity must be laid in truth 
and justice — in wise and wholesome laws — in the 



PLEA FOR THE OLD FOUNDATIONS. 7 



eternal principles of morality and virtue — in the 
intelligence, the patriotism, the thrift, the order 
and contentment of the people. The foundations 
once carefully and thoroughly laid, and the 
achievement will be easy, and the work will 
stand. 

The Military Commander also, going to make 
war with an enemy, is apt to be wise on this 
point. He looks to his " foundations." He sits 
first down and counts the cost. He augments and 
makes available his resources. He thoroughly 
disciplines and equips his soldiers. He seeks to 
make the war popular with the people. He 
secures a broad and advantageous base for his 
operations. He risks as little as possible to the 
hazards of battle. He knows that his strength 
lies not in the number of his soldiers, so much as 
in their discipline, in the spirit which animates 
them, in the plan and skill of his movements, in 
the thoroughness of his knowledge of the science 
of warfare, and in his ability to concentrate his 
strength and employ it with effect at the favorable 
moment. 

We read, indeed, of " soldiers of fortune but 
sure I am that the great and successful G-enerals 



8 



FLEA FOR THE OLD FOUNDATIONS. 



immortalized in History, were any thing but apes, 
or the children of a blind and stupid Fortune. They 
were gifted with genius, with penetration, with 
the power of commanding ; and they made their 
way to victory and conquest and fame, by a saga- 
cious and worldly-wise use of their gifts and op- 
portunities. They took care of the " foundations," 
and success followed, and History monuments 
their exploits. 

Napoleon has been thought by many to be a 
splendid exception to this rule. He is called par 
excellence " the soldier of fortune," u the man of 
destiny." But such a view of him is superficial. 
It was any thing but a " blind god" that led him 
forth to victory. It was not the confluence of 
favoring tides, nor fortuitous adventures, nor the 
genius of the age, nor a contracted, superficial, or 
indolent policy, which raised him to the highest 
pitch of earthly greatness, and made him an over- 
match for combined Europe, but it was the intensi- 
fied action of commanding qualities. His genius 
was of the very highest order. His mastery of know- 
ledge, and his power of endurance and of application, 
were almost superhuman. No man ever so thor- 
oughly understood that strange people, the French ; 



PLEA FOR THE OLD FOUNDATIONS. 



9 



or so wielded at will a nation's resources ; or 
mastered such a facility in creating the bone and 
sinew of war ; or succeeded so well in infusing 
his own intensely ambitious and glory-loving 
spirit into his soldiers, and attaching them to his 
person. No man ever mastered the science of war 
as he mastered it ; or has shown such consum- 
mate skill and superiority in concentrating his 
strength and hurling it upon a distant foe. He 
swept like a whirlwind over Europe : but it was 
not ;, a freak of the winds" that armed and 
guided that Power. A mighty genius had created 
it; a mighty hand guided it; it had a living 
soul ; a nation's vitality, and concentrated and 
combined energies, were in it. No man ever made 
success more dependent on talent, skill, sagacity, 
penetration, vigorous action — on foundations deep- 
laid, and broad and strong as a nation's enthu- 
siasm and sentiments and sympathies. And but 
for his Russian campaign, which was a palpable 
violation of his own settled policy — a gigantic 
enterprise with little or no foundations to sustain 
it. and the unfortunate issue of which lost him, 
for the time being, the sympathies and confidence 
of France — he might have retained and perpetu- 



10 PLEA FOR THE OLD FOUNDATIONS. 



ated his power. Recent events have shown what 
deep and stable foundations he laid in the affec- 
tions and sentiments of that people. # 

Now, if it is wise for the men of this world to 
look well to the "foundations," it certainly is wise 
for " the children of the kingdom" to do it. If 
this principle or policy is so effective, often for 
evil, in the hands of earthly ambition and enter- 
prise, it can be made mighty through (rod, in the 
hands of the righteous, to pull down evil, and 
build up the Messiah's throne. The " founda- 
tions" once fairly and strongly laid, in the indivi- 
dual soul, in the family, in a community, in the 
nation, in the world's great movements, and there 
is comparatively little danger ; an immense advan- 
tage has been gained ; the work of reformation 
and salvation will go on ; nothing can stop it. For 
the truth now has free course. The Grospel finds 
something to act upon. The way is prepared for 

* In saying this much of the great Napoleon, I had no fears that 
my own people would infer that I was among his admirers, inas" 
much as I had but recently expressed in a sermon, the strongest 
feeling of reprobation of the man and his career, morally viewed, 
and of the conduct of those, not excepting the reverends, who are 
wielding their pens so lustily in the vain and wicked attempt to 
set aside the just verdict which the enlightened moral sentiment 
of the world has passed upon him. 



PLEA FOR THE OLD FOUNDATIONS. 



11 



the Holy Spirit. The foundations give vitality to 
virtue and piety, maturity to character, and dura- 
bility to all that is good. 

But " if the foundations be destroyed, what can 
the righteous do ?" If the ground -work of nature, 
of truth, of grace, of Providence, be swept away, 
what is there left to build upon ? If, for instance, 
a sinner's conscience and moral sensibilities are all 
frittered away ; if all the constitutional elements 
of virtue and restraint are uprooted and cast out 
of his soul — what hoDe is there of his salvation? 
If the family Training do not subdue the wayward 
passions of youth, and lay the foundation of self- 
government, thrift, and piety, what can Society 
do to restrain man, or the Church to save him ? 
If the State strike down the principles of righteous- 
ness, by her legislative or executive mandate, 
how is it possible to hold Society together ? If 
the Church remove her "ancient land-marks' ? — 
corrupt the essential doctrines of the Gospel — or 
lose the life and spirit of her faith, whence is to 
come the salvation of the world ? Or, if there be 
no planting and watering during seed-time, how 
can there be a harvest ? If there be no toiling 
and enduring and pains-taking to lay the fcunda- 



12 PLEA FOE THE OLD FOUNDATIONS. 



tions, what important results need to be looked 
for ? If there be no outgoings of faith and en- 
lightened views and liberality, how vain is it to 
expect those ingatherings over which angels re- 
joice ? 

This is, manifestly, the teaching of the text. It 
seeks to magnify the "foundations." It declares 
that no permanent good can be accomplished in 
this world by any agency which sets aside this 
fundamental law of Divine Providence — by any 
efforts, occasional and superficial merely in their 
character— by any elements not living, vital, 
radical, eternal. And the explanation of this fact 
is to be found in the nature of human depravity, 
and in the strength of those laws by which it 
perpetuates itself in the world. And here lies the 
secret of the failure of so much individual effort 
after salvation ; and the failure of so many confi- 
dent schemes for reforming mankind. They have 
no ground-work, and therefore cannot succeed. 
They have u no root in themselves, 7 ' nor in any 
living and regenerating principles, and therefore 
must quickly wither and die. 

This regard for the " foundations " is one of the 
fixed and marked laws of Divine Providence. 



PLEA FOR THE OLD FOUNDATIONS. 



13 



All the radical arrangements of Providence in this 
world are made with reference to it. And all the 
real and permanent good which has been accom- 
plished in it, has been accomplished in obedience 
to this law. The study of Providence with refer- 
ence to this thought, is highly instructive. The 
Mind that shapes and controls the affairs of this 
world is most manifestly aiming at universal and 
permanent dominion over it. If Prophecy were 
silent on the subject, we should still say with con- 
fidence, judging from the genius and history of 
Providence, that Christianity was meant to be, 
and must ultimately be, the religion of the entire 
world. There is nothing temporary or superficial, 
hasty or impulsive in the structure or operations 
of this system of truth and agencies. On the con- 
trary, the kingdom of God on earth is governed 
by laws that are fixed and fundamental in charac- 
ter ; its vitality and growth are the vitality and 
growth of principles that are eternally w T ise and 
right, — principles that have been embedded in the 
sentiment and life of the world, by long ages of 
toil and pains-taking, and from time to time made 
efficient by the Providence and Spirit of (rod. 
That vast Temple which we see in the process of 



14 PLEA FOR THE OLD FOUNDATIONS. 

erection on this earthly theatre of action, has its 
foundations deep-laid in the counsels and purposes 
of Grod, and in those elements which are most vital, 
powerful and enduring in the human mind. 

When sin had overthrown the kingdom of Grod 
in this lower world, and had effaced his very image 
from the soul of man, God began the work of re- 
demption and restoration at " the foundations. n 
He began with that stupendous sacrifice, out of 
and far above humanity itself, which will never 
cease to be the wonder of his creatures. In the 
death of Christ, at first typified, and four thou- 
sand years after accomplished, he laid an eternal 
basis of perfect reconciliation, and secured the 
agency of the Holy Spirit, which agency is essen- 
tial to the subjective work of the atonement. He 
began with individual man- — with the fallen pa- 
rents of the race. In that blessed promise which 
he gave to them before he expelled them from 
Paradise, (Gen. iii. 15,) was contained " the leaven" 
of His kingdom. For thousands of years Grod 
wrought patiently at "the foundations. " The 
whole Patriarchial and Mosaic dispensations are 
to be viewed in this light. The former prepared 



PLEA FOR THE OLD FOUNDATIONS. 



15 



the way for the latter, and the latter for the intro- 
duction and development of Christianity, 

Immense preparatory labor was necessary in 
order to bring Christianity before the world with 
any rational prospect of success. The growth of 
any religious system is necessarily slow. And 
especially must this be true of such a system as 
we have in the Grospel, — a system so eminently 
spiritual and holy. Jesus Christ (and the same 
is true of his Apostles) could not have succeeded 
as he did, had not the foundations of his doctrines 
been long and laboriously laid. He taught no new 
religion, not a single new doctrine. His teachings 
were but the fulfilment, expansion and enforce- 
ment of the Jewish Scriptures. The Jewish The- 
ology was the groundwork of his entire teaching 
and mission. And that Theology, imperfect* as it 
was. it took four thousand years to establish in the 
belief and laws of a single nation, and mature 
sufficiently to engraft upon it the Christian dispen- 
sation. All this time was necessary, and all that 

*I use •• imperfect" here in the sense of incomplete. All the 
principles of Christianity were embraced in it. but they could not 
be fully apprehended or have their perfect development until Christ 
came. 



16 PLEA FOR THE OLD FOUNDATIONS. 

peculiar and wonderful work of Providence, of 
which the Old Testament is the outlined history, 
in the judgment of Divine Wisdom, in order to get 
fairly established in the human mind, and in the 
moral sentiments of mankind, those religious ideas, 
truths and principles which Christ came fully to 
declare and make universal. The foundations of 
Christ's kingdom had been laid before his advent, 
broad, deep and living, by Patriarchs and by Pro- 
phets, — in the Jewish Theology and Ritual, — in 
the Hebrew Theocracy, existing for many hundred 
years ; in the diffusion of the Jewish Scriptures* and 
learning among the surrounding nations ; in bring- 
ing all the world together by a common Language, 
and that by far the most cultivated language on 
earth, and making it the medium of the Gospel's 
proclamation ; and in bringing all the world under 
one Political Power, so that national antipathies 
and wars should not hinder the rapid spread of 

* It will be recollected that the entire Old Testament had ex- 
isted in the Greek language, then the universal medium of culti- 
vated thought, for 315 years before Christ began his teachings ; 
first in Egypt, and then in Greece, — the sources and centres of 
ancient civilization, — the light of Judaism had been struggling for 
ages with the darkness and corruption of the human mind. 



PLEA FOR THE OLD FOUNDATIONS. 17 



Christianity when once its peaceful banner was 
unfurled.* 

And, if we study the history of the Christian 
Church, we shall find that all real progress — that 
every permanent conquest — has been the slow but 
sure outgrowth of well-laid " foundations." When 
these have been neglected, little has been gained. 
Where this fixed law of Providence has been dis- 
regarded, the results reached have been meagre 
and temporary. All the great movements of the 
religious world which have given a new and per- 
manent impulse to the human mind, have drawn 
their life and power from deep and patiently-laid 
" foundations." 

Take the Great Reformation of the sixteenth 
century as an illustration. A superficial student 
of history might pronounce that greatest revolu- 
tion of modern times a hasty, impulsive, and 
almost miraculous movement ; so sudden and 
wonderful was the development. "A monk ap- 
pears, and in the half of Europe," the power and 

* We were obliged to condense an important and extensive 
truth here into a few words. See it more fully stated in the 
American Biblical Repository. Vol. VI.. Third Series, pp. 456- 
467. 



18 PLEA FOR THE OLD FOUNDATIONS. 

glory of that Kingdom which had for centuries lorded 
it over (rod's heritage and over human liberty 
" speedily crumbles into dust." But that great re- 
ligious movement was, in its origin, far from being 
the work of Luther. The matters which it pressed 
to an issue were not simply the supremacy of the 
Pope, and the corruptions and abuses of the Ro- 
mish Church, but the grand ideas and leading truths 
of universal Christianity ; truths that were vital 
to human freedom and progress, and to the eman- 
cipation of the Church from that terrible System 
which had so long enslaved it and sucked its life's 
blood. Had it been a simple reform, or choice of 
doctrines — a movement confined to the surface of 
things, and drawing its life from causes local and 
temporary — it could not have succeeded ; it would 
have been strangled in its birth ; nay, in the lan- 
guage of the eloquent Historian^ of the Reforma- 
tion, u It would never have overpassed the thresh- 
old of an academy, of a cloister, or even of a 
monk's cell. But it was the pouring forth anew 
of that life which Christianity had brought into 
the world. It was the triumph of the noblest of 



* D'Aubigne. 



PLEA FOR THE OLD FOUNDATIONS. 19 



doctrines — of that which animates those who re- 
ceive it with the purest and most powerful enthu- 
siasm — the doctrine of faith, — the doctrine of 
grace." 

The monk of Wittemherg, struggling in his cell 
to shake off the yoke of spiritual bondage and 
come forth into the liberty of the Gospel, wrestling 
in fear and agony, and feeling after the light 
through a dark and terrible experience, was a fit- 
ting representative of the Church of his day, groan- 
ing under the enormous burdens which a corrupt 
faith and a tyrannizing priesthood had imposed, and 
sighing in secret places for the light and liberty 
of a pure Christianity. When he raised a cry in 
central Germany, it went straight to the hearts of 
millions, and thrilled the soul of Europe, as if it 
had been a resurrection trumpet. For it was the 
cry of humanity, long enslaved by superstition and 
priestly power, and now demanding liberty and 
God's Word; the cry of a burdened conscience, 
weary of the Church and longing for Christ, fet- 
tered by rites and traditions, and thirsting for a 
better righteousness and a higher freedom ; the 
cry of a human soul that had tasted of God's for- 
giveness, had attained to justification by faith alone, 



20 TLEA FOR THE OLD FOUNDATIONS. 

had partaken of the pure Word of God, and now out 
of the abundance of the heart testified of what he 
knew and felt and believed. 

There were, consequently, multitudes to sym- 
pathize with the Reformer the moment he ap- 
peared. The Reformation had already taken deep 
root. God had long been at work laying the 
" foundations." Causes and agencies had been 
silently operating for centuries which, by the law 
of progress, rendered the Reformation a moral 
necessity. God had awaked the human mind 
from the slumber of the Middle Ages. By won- 
derful discoveries he had afforded to the Church 
facilities for giving the Truth a new and more 
permanent life in the world. He had introduced 
the Bible into the living languages of Europe, and 
scattered it extensively among the people. He 
had, by the silent workings of His Spirit, infused 
the elements of a new religious life into number- 
less souls. He had raised up men, here and there, 
boldly to testify to the truth and to die for it. A 
century and a half before Luther's advent, Wick- 
liffj in England, had sown broadcast the seed of 
the kingdom; and a half century later, John 
Huss had preached in Bohemia the very essence 



PLEA FOR THE OLD FOUNDATIONS. 21 



of the Christian doctrine; and the flames of his 
martyrdom had kindled a light which had not 
gone out ; and his prophetic words, heralding the 
Reformation, were still remembered. 

These " foundations," when Luther began the 
battle with Rome, were too broadly, and deeply, 
and permanently laid, to be overthrown or rooted 
out by any kingly or priestly power. They had 
grown strong and vital, until they were quite suf- 
ficient to sustain an open and vigorous stand 
against that vast Politico-Ecclesiastical Power 
which ruled and cursed the earth — sufficient, also, 
to nourish and sustain a free, and a pure and 
spiritual Christianity. It was the development of 
this religious Revival only that was sudden and 
rapid ; the preparation had been slowly and noise- 
lessly going on for ages deep down in the bosom 
of the Church and of Society, The fusion into a 
permanent Life and a mighty Power was quick and 
wonderful as the action of electric forces ; but the 
elements of that life and power had been forming 
and gathering in individual minds and hearts for 
a long period. And it only needed the bold and 
earnest voice of Luther, appealing to men's silent 
convictions and experiences — the attraction of the 



22 PLEA FOR THE OLD FOUNDATIONS. 

central doctrine of Christianity, preached with 
apostolic simplicity and unction— to bring all 
these quickened elements together, and make them 
mighty for the overthrow of the rotten institutions 
w T hich had grown out of the Papal Apostasy, and 
for the regeneration and advancement of mankind. 

Hence, too, the 'permanency of the conquests 
then made. The " foundations" which then up- 
heaved the religious world, and brought forth a 
new and better growth of Christian doctrine and 
life, are still alive and active. The principles of 
that movement are as vital to-day as when Luther 
thundered them from the pulpits of Germany. 
Three centuries have not sufficed to mature all 
the fruit of that replanting of Christianity. The 
real conflict of our day, and of coming ages, is to 
be settled on the battle-field of the Reformation. 

Were I to rehearse to you the history of more 
recent, and of the present movements, looking to 
the reformation or the progress of our race, it 
would only go to prove the necessity of broad and 
thoroughly-laid "foundations" — foundations reach- 
ing down to the necessities of man's moral as well 
as his social nature, and instinct with the light 
and life of the Grospel. Could the history of every 



PLEA FOR THE OLD FOUNDATIONS. 23 



individual conversion to God be furnished, it 
would doubtless be made to appear, that the law 
of Providence, recognized in the text, is a uniform 
law ; the Spirit renewing only when and where 
the k ' foundations" are laid and kept alive. 

Our hope for the world to-day, as we look for- 
ward to the future, rests mainly on the " founda- 
tions' 4 which underlie the faith, the life, and the 
enterprise of the Christian Church, rather than 
on the existing out-growth or development of 
Christianity. In numbers and outward strength 
the Church of our day is relatively weak, and 
seems wholly inadequate to the mission assigned 
her — the social and moral regeneration of this 
world by means of the simple Crospel of Jesus 
Christ. But yet no other power on earth, we 
boldly affirm, has such broad, thoroughly-laid, 
living and enduring "foundations." Providence 
has been busy for nearly six thousand years in 
forming and bringing together and cementing the 
materials for, and embedding the massive founda- 
tions thus prepared, in the Theology, the Litera- 
ture, the Civilization, the Social and Political Or- 
ganizations, and in all the vital Influences and 
Movements of the world. Christianity has had time 



24 PLEA FOR THE OLD FOUNDATIONS. 

to prove itself, by actual experiment, to be the re- 
ligion of universal mankind- — adapted to the ne- 
cessities and conditions of man in every existing 
and conceivable state — having in it all the ele- 
ments of true conservatism, and yet of real progress 
- — able to grapple single-handed with error and ini- 
quity and evil in their most appalling forms, and 
work a peaceful and blessed change— capable of 
subsidizing every element of power and progress, 
every invention and improvement, and of bending 
the entire enlightened and quickened mind and 
enterprise of the world to the furtherance of its 
one simple and glorious mission. 

What broad, and living, and lasting " founda- 
tions" has God prepared for the righteous of this 
generation ! The Holy Scriptures have given a 
Christian Theology and Literature to the world. 
The principles of Christianity are living, vital, and 
world-wide elements of power. The sentiments 
which underlie human society and affect it in its 
most radical elements and relations, have been 
slowly but really moulded into essential harmony 
with the kingdom of Christ. In the establishment 
of Constitutional Laws — in the settled principles 
of Political Economy and of National Intercourse 



PLEA FOR THE OLD FOUNDATIONS. 25 



— in the enlightened Conscience, the Legislation 
and Jurisprudence of the world — in the social, 
educational, and religious Institutions of Christen- 
dom — in the character, position, strength, and en- 
terprise of Protestant nations — in the infusion of 
the vital Life of Christianity into the bosom of the 
Reformed Church — in the Missionary Spirit which 
the revivals of the last century have called into be- 
ing, and in the Missionary Enterprise of the present 
age, which is fast waking the Church into millen- 
nial life, and is toiling earnestly and successfully 
in a thousand inviting fields — and in those won- 
derful movements of Providence which have so 
signally prepared the way for the Gospel in almost 
every land — in all these, and many other particu- 
lars, " the righteous" have foundations prepared 
for them to build upon, broad, solid, enduring, 
and full of the wisdom and power of God. There 
needs to be only a zeal on the part of " the right- 
eous'' adequate to the existing moral state of the 
world, and a faith commensurate with the power 
of the Gospel to reform and save it — there needs 
to be only an earnest application and a Divine 
quickening of the principles of Christian doctrine 
and life, already grounded in the sentiments, the 
2 



26 PLEA FOR THE OLD FOUNDATIONS. 

social life and the religious institutions and agen- 
cies of the world, in order to secure the speedy 
regeneration of mankind, and the universal reign 
of Christ on earth. 

There are three fundamental Agencies, or Ar- 
rangements, by means of which Divine Providence 
seeks to build and preserve u the foundations" of 
moral goodness in this world. These are the 
Family, the State, and the Church. They sus- 
tain most important relations to each other. They 
underlie all that is worth preserving, and all that 
can be turned to good account. To destroy, or 
essentially to impair, one of these agencies or ar- 
rangements, is to thwart the Divine purpose, fight 
against Providence, shake society to its founda- 
tions, and undermine the virtue, and piety, and 
hope of the world. The design of Providence in 
originating and perpetuating these peculiar ar- 
rangements, evidently has reference to the pro- 
gress, triumph, and permanency of His Kingdom 
among men. They are indeed the u foundations" 
which Eternal Wisdom early laid, and which 
Eternal Providence has preserved to " the right- 
eous," amidst all the revolutions and changes of 



PLEA FOR THE OLD FOUNDATIONS. 



27 



six thousand years; and we do well to watch 
them with jealous vigilance, and not suffer the 
hand of the destroyer to come nigh them. They 
are essential to the world's salvation. 

Let us examine them briefly in reference to this 
subject. — And, 

1. The Family Arrangement. — Human wis- 
dom would never have hit on such an expedient ; 
and human depravity has ever fought against it. 
It is a wonderful arrangement, this division of the 
whole human family into little separate communi- 
ties — every community a little government, a little 
world by itself — marriage the foundation, affection 
the bond, and Divine authority the ruling power. 
Such an arrangement, simple as it is, touches all 
the elementary and radical principles of human 
nature. The Family power is the fountain of all 
moral influence in this world. Without such an 
agency religion had never gained a footing in 
it. During all the patriarchal ages the Family 
alone nursed and kept alive the knowledge and 
worship of the one God. But for such an arrange- 
ment the religion of the Bible could not have sur- 
vived the Flood — never have been separated from 



28 PLEA FOR THE OLD FOUNDATIONS. 

the Polytheism which again quickly overspread the 
earth, and secured to itself a righteous seed through 
the line of the " Father of the faithful." It was 
the Family compact that first gave true religion 
root in depraved human nature — which secured 
" the covenant of promise " on which rests the en- 
tire fabric of the Kingdom of Grod among men — 
which laid the foundations of the Jewish State and 
Church and of the Christian dispensation, and gave 
a Redeemer to the world ! Without such an ar- 
rangement and agency, not one of all these things, 
so essential to man's Redemption, could have been 
accomplished. And without this primitive Agency 
at the fountain-head of moral influence, Society 
cannot be maintained even in this advanced period 
of human development ; universal degeneracy and 
corruption would inevitably ensue were it de- 
stroyed. In the sanctity of marriage as originally 
ord.ained of Grod ; in the strength of the domestic 
affections and virtues ; and in the restraints and 
training of a well-ordered Family, are the radical, 
the foundation-elements of all human happiness 
and goodness. 

"We cannot over-estimate the value of this agency. 
We cannot begin to tell all its vital bearings on the 



PLEA FOR THE OLD FOUNDATIONS. 29 



Kingdom of Christ. It takes man from his mother's 
breast and educates him for life. It cradles him 
amidst ties and influences the strongest, the most 
subtle and powerful, which can move and mould 
human character. It gives direction to the mind, 
and the whole after-life. It lays scarcely-felt yet 
all-powerful restraints upon depravity. It accus- 
toms one to obedience. It forms virtuous habits. 
It nurses and brings to maturity all the good quali- 
ties there are in human nature. And, when its 
proper place is given to religion in the Family, it 
becomes a direct and most efficient agency for sal- 
vation. Grod loves to honor this normal agency. 
The converts to righteousness in the earth have 
mostly been from the members of well-governed, 
pious families. 

Where these early " foundations " are neglected, 
or wrongly laid, what can even " the righteous do V 9 
What power has Society to restrain or reform, or the 
doctrines and institutions of Religion to teach and 
to regenerate, the children of an ignorant, vicious 
u nrestrained, disobedient parentage ? If you would 
build up the Kingdom of Christ, my brethren ; if 
you would make Society pure, compact, and 
stable ; if you would have the State virtuous, 



30 PLEA FOR THE OLD FOUNDATIONS. 

thrifty and strong, begin with these " foundations." 
Honor the Family arrangement. Sanctify your 
household. Rear an altar to intelligence, to vir- 
tue, and to God, on your hearth-stone. Sooner 
than discard or neglect Family Government and 
Family Religion, discard every other agency, and 
throw your children portionless upon the world. 
If you fail or blunder here, after-anxieties and tears 
and toils will most likely be useless. If these 
"foundations" are not patiently and thoroughly 
and prayerfully laid, in vain will you invoke the 
agency of Society and of the Church to save your 
children from ruin. There is no other agency 
which can possibly supply such a deficiency. This 
prodigious power for the right social and religious 
training of your children — an agency beginning 
with their existence and spread out over their whole 
life — Eternal Providence has ordained and put into 
your hands, and you only are responsible for its 
exercise. No man can take that power from you, 
lawfully; no man can share that responsibility 
with you. 

There are self-styled reformers abroad in the 
world who would knock away these old and tried 
"foundations," and experiment upon human na- 



PLEA FOR THE OLD FOUNDATIONS. 



31 



ture. They are wiser than Providence. Their 
infidelity attacks this great social Law of Virtue 
and Christianity. They look upon the Family 
arrangement as unwise, inconvenient, and expen- 
sive, and propose -new and more extensive and 
economical associations and amalgamations. But 
this movement is one of the devices of the Devil 
for the overthrow of all virtue and all godliness in 
the world. The Family Constitution is really re- 
sponsible for none of the evils which afflict Society. 
If Society is so corrupt, so oppressed with evil and 
misery, notwithstanding this wise and merciful 
arrangement, these deep-laid and living founda- 
tions, what would it be without them ? 

It is a shallow and miserable Philosophy which 
thus seeks to tinker man's social state. It is a 
mad and embittered infidelity, which would thus 
destroy the " foundations " which were laid of G od 
in Eden — and laid again after the Flood — and upon 
which all the Prophets stood — and on the strength 
of which Christ himself was born into the world 
and taught, and along down which the covenant 
mercy of (rod has flowed from Abraham until now. 
It is the madness and malignity of infidelity and 
depravity , which are dealing these blows at the 



32 



PLEA FOR THE OLD FOUNDATIONS. 



social foundations, whatever disguise the Reform 
may assume, or name inscribe on its banner. It 
is not the actual evils arising from the Family 
state which provoke this social movement, but the 
restraints which it imposes. Its real aim and 
drift are, as sound reasoning and careful observa- 
tion will show, to break down the law of marriage, 
and give unbridled liberty to licentiousness. 

Not only should such a movement not be looked 
upon with indifference or the slightest favor on the 
part of " the righteous," but the deadliest hostility 
should be shown to it, and the note of warning 
raised against it. We are not beyond all danger 
from this source, as we are too apt to assume. For 
the movement originates in the radical and uni- 
versal depravities of human nature, and not in the 
shallow conceits of an unfledged Philosophy. There 
is much also to give it favor with the ignorant, 
vicious, and dissatisfied masses, especially with our 
already immense and rapidly augmenting foreign 
population. Soon too there will be knocking at the 
door of our National Confederacy for the privilege 
and power of State Sovereignty, a populous and 
wide-spread Territory whose religions system is a 
libel on reason, and legitimately subversive of all 



PLEA FOR THE OLD FOUNDATIONS. 



33 



well-laid foundations, and whose social state is in 
open contravention of the laws of the Bible and of 
Providence on this subject. Let us forestall legis- 
lative action by creating a right moral sentiment 
on the subject. Let us rebuke and shame out of 
all decent Society, the men, and the women too, 
who, under various names of reform and associa- 
tion, are striving to spring a mine under our do- 
mestic institutions. Let us rally anew around our 
Puritan, nay, our Christian hearth-stones — dear to 
us from so many blessed memories, and hallowed 
ties, and virtuous and godly influences — and swear 
by all that is lovely in virtue and sacred in religion 
and good in the past and bright in the future, to 
preserve them, untouched and unpolluted, as the 
God of nature laid them in the beginning, and the 
Grod of providence has preserved them to us out of 
the wreck of the Past. 

2. We pass to consider the State as one of the 
three great pillars of the Kingdom of Christ on 
earth. I have not space to discuss any of the po- 
litical aspects of this question; nor any of the 
many conflicting theories of Civil Government 
which have been proposed. Let us view it simply 
2* 



34 PLEA FOR THE OLD FOUNDATIONS. 

in the light of Scripture, and in its moral and reli- 
gious relations. 

All Civil Grovernment derives its authority from 
Grod. The warrant for it, and the nature and de- 
sign of it, are clearly given in Romans xiii. 1 — 7, 
to specify no other passages : — " Let every soul be 
subject unto the higher powers. For there is no 
power but of (xod : the powers that be are ordained 
of Grod. "Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, 
resisteth the ordinance of Grod : and they that re- 
sist shall receive to themselves damnation. For 
rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the 
evil. "Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power ? 
do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise 
of the same ; for he is the minister of G-od to thee 
for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be 
afraid ; for he beareth not the sword in vain : for he 
is the minister of Grod, a revenger to execute wrath 
upon him that doeth evil. Wherefore ye must 
needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for 
conscience' sake. For, for this cause pay ye tri- 
bute also : for they are Grod's ministers, attending 
continually upon this very thing. Render there- 
fore to all their dues ; tribute to whom tribute is 
due ; custom to whom custom ; fear to whom fear, 



PLEA FOE THE OLD FOUNDATIONS. 35 

honor to whom honor." — This language is decisive 
and full. There is no getting away from the prin- 
ciples here laid down ; and they cover the whole 
ground I propose to discuss. 

The Civil Constitution is as really the ordinance 
of God as the Family or the Church. It sustains 
the same relations to God and to his kingdom on 
earth. It is ordained for the same wise and holy 
end. It is upheld throughout the world by Divine 
Providence for moral and religious purposes. It 
is often abused and perverted ; so is the Family 
power and the Church power : but the principle, 
the institution, is of God, nevertheless. And bad 
as most Civil Governments are, and imperfect as 
they all are, they are still infinitely better than 
no governments. They are a protection ; they 
keep alive in the world the principle of authority 
and subordination ; they operate as restraints on 
selfishness and depravity ; they are bonds of union ; 
they are a terror to evil-doers ; and they help to lay 
foundations for the righteous. The very worst 
Government in the world is unquestionably a 
blessing, in this sense ; and if it cannot be essen- 
tially improved, by all means it had better be sus- 
tained. The overthrow of the Civil Government 



36 PLEA FOR THE OLD FOUNDATIONS. 

in France, in the last century, was the overthrow 
of all order, all virtue and religion, and the signal 
for a terrible baptism of crime and blood. The 
rule of the Turk, and the iron despotism of the 
Czar, is better far than a state of anarchy. The 
worst form of misrule which human depravity 
ever invented is preferable to no rule. The climax 
of hell's misery is the prevalence of universal an- 
archy ; no law — no restraint — no bond ; depravity 
raging eternally, unchecked ; and every fiend let 
loose to torment and do evil at his pleasure. 

We do not fully appreciate Civil Government as 
one of the great pillars of Grod's throne in this re- 
bellious, disordered, and depraved world. "We do 
not always see the intimate and essential relations 
which, by Divine appointment, it is made to sus- 
tain to the Redeemer's Kingdom, nor feel the obli- 
gations which Society and Religion are under to it. 
If " the foundations" laid by this arrangement for 
social union and government be ;t destroyed, what 
can the righteous do?" Individual rights, and 
family order, and religious institutions, could not 
be maintained. The Gfospel would find no basis in 
the human soul — in public sentiment — -in estab- 
lished laws-^-in social influence, and would fall to 



PLEA FOR THE OLD FOUNDATIONS. 37 



the ground. The existence of the Christian Church 
could not be preserved, for any length of time, in 
the purest community on earth, without the con- 
current support of Civil Government. 

Without this foundation Religion had never been 
established among the nations of the world. The 
Hebrew State was the right arm of the Hebrew 
Faith and Church, and performed a great and 
necessary work in introducing Christianity into the 
world as a matured and compact Power. The foun- 
dations of the Messiah's throne were laid in the 
Jewish Theocracy and Kingly office. It was ne- 
cessary to the evolvement and firm establishment 
of the Divine Plan of human redemption, that Grod 
should take into his own hands the reins of Civil 
G-overnment — should single out one righteous fam- 
ily and keep it distinct from the rest of mankind, 
and increase it into a nation — and then should 
raise an impassable wall of separation between the 
Israelites and their idolatrous neighbors — become 
himself the Head of that Commonwealth, give it 
laws, and administer them for many hundred 
years — and thus not only preserve the infant 
Church from the corruptions of a world-wide Poly- 
theism, and lay deep and broad and enduring foun- 



38 PLEA FOR THE OLD FOUNDATIONS. 



dations for the Jewish Theology, but at the same 
time give being and power on earth to those eter- 
nal principles of justice and wisdom which un- 
derlie all rightful authority and government, and 
identify those principles with the Christian faith 
and life, and the world's hope of Redemption.^ 

* We had not time to do justice to the important truth condensed 
here into a single paragraph. It is worthy of study and expan- 
sion. Prof. Wines has written ably and satisfactorily on this sub- 
ject in Biblical Repository, vol. vi., Third Series, and also in his 
recent work on the Laws of the Ancient Hebrews. Two or three 
brief quotations must suffice. 

"What was the proper province of the Hebrew Theocracy? 
What its leading objects? They are chiefly two. One was to 
.teach mankind the true science of civil government. And how 
well does it correspond with the goodness of God in other respects, 
that he should make a special revelation on this subject ! We hold 
it to have been an important part of the legislation of the Most 
High, as the lawgiver, judge and ruler of Israel, to show how civil 
authority should be created, and how it should be administered so 
as best to promote, the welfare and happiness of a nation 5 and also 
how the relations between rulers and ruled should be adjusted 
and regulated. But another, and, we are persuaded, the leading 
object of the theocratic feature of the Hebrew government, was 
the overthrow and extirpation of idolatry. The design was to 
make idolatry a crime against the State, so that it might be pun- 
ishable by the civil law without a violation of civil liberty. There 
can be no doubt that a fundamental purpose of the Mosaic Polity 
was the abolition of idolatrous worship, and the substitution in its 
place and maintenance of true religion in the world. And the 
only adequate agency to the production of this result, so far as 
human wisdom can see, was this very institution of the Jewish 
Theocracy. ***** Idolatry had now reached its most 



PLEA FOR THE OLD FOUNDATIONS. 39 



The Christian then, more than any other man, 
has an interest at stake in the State. It touches 
his religious faith and hope as vitally as it does 
his person and property. He owes to it as sacred 
a duty as he owes to the Church. He cannot fail 
to be a true and earnest patriot, and not endanger 
his soul and sin against Jesus Christ. He cannot 
afford to have these " foundations " destroyed, or 
" daubed with untempered mortar." Religion 
has nothing to gain, but every thing to lose, by the 
overthrow or weakening of Civil Government. A 
blow aimed here, whatever the intention be, is a 

gigantic height, and spread its broad and deadly shadow over the 
earth. To preserve the doctrine of the Unity, in the midst of a 
polytheistic world, was the fundamental design of the Mosaic 
Polity. * * * * 1 One God only shalt thou serve, 7 was the 
first great principle of the Hebrew Polity. To the end that this 
fundamental truth of religion might become a vital element of 
Hebrew thought, faith and manners, the one true God became also 
the covenanted King and Civil Head of the Hebrew State. Viewed 
as to a main design of it, then, the Theocracy was a Divine insti- 
tution, employed the more effectually to supplant idolatry, with- 
out a violation of that precious principle of civil liberty, that 
mere opinions, whether theological, ethical, or political, were not 
to be cramped and restrained by the pains and penalties of the 
civil law. * * * * It is perfectly evident from the history Of 
the Israelites, that their entire isolation from other nations was 
the only means, save a miraculous control of their understanding 
and will, of abolishing idolatry among them." — pp. 579, 580, 581, 
585, 591. 



40 PLEA FOR THE OLD FOUNDATIONS. 



blow aimed at the very foundations of virtue and 
godliness in the world, nay, at G-od himself and 
his throne. 

what a faithful citizen ought every Christian 
to be ! How earnestly ought he to strive and pray 
for the welfare of the State, which, in the place of 
G-od, holds over him the aegis of Law, and plants 
for him foundations of personal safety and rights, 
and of social power and religious freedom! 

3. The Christian Church is the third and final 
grand agency for the regeneration and salvation of 
mankind. This is a strictly moral and spiritual 
power. " My Kingdom," says Christ, " is not of 
this world." It is a "Kingdom" nevertheless — a 
Kingdom distinct from the State and allied to no 
earthly power — a Kingdom having a real and 
living Head, and well-defined and established 
laws — a Kingdom fitted to man's spiritual na- 
ture, and guarding and promoting his spiritual 
interests — and this it is that gives it vitality and 
power. It is a matured and living and adminis- 
tered System of moral agencies, instinct with the 
wisdom and power of Gfod, whose peculiar mis- 
sion it is to produce and gather into one all the 



PLEA FOR THE OLD FOUNDATIONS. 41 

sanctified elements there are in the world, and give 
them effect for its salvation. 

From the peculiar structure of the Christian 
Church, it is an agency of prodigious power. It is 
made, in the providence of God, to subordinate all 
other agencies and arrangements. It wields all 
the elements of a Supernatural and Divine spiritual 
power. It is the depositary and the expounder of 
the Oracles of God. Its Sabbath, its Sanctuaries, 
its Ministry, its public Teachings, its various educa- 
tional and religious Institutions, bring it into close 
and living contact with mankind in every relation 
and department of life, and make the pressure of its 
agency steady, wide-spread and powerful. Build- 
ing on foundations 4 ' laid in man's moral nature, in 
the family arrangement, and by the help of Civil 
Government — on foundations which almost six 
thousand years have only served to widen, and 
strengthen, and sink lower down in the intelligence, 
and conscience, and manners of the world, and 
make stable and vital for good — there is no limit 
to the power of this agency, especially when itself 
is subordinate to the purpose of God's redeeming 
mercy, and made a quickening, and regenerating, 
and reconstructing power by the direct agency of 
the Holy Spirit. 



42 PLEA FOR THE OLD FOUNDATIONS. 

The unsanctified world little feels its obligations 
to the Church as the chief reformatory and regen- 
erative agency at work upon our degenerate and 
fallen race. But for her existence and agency, the 
light of knowledge would go out, the fountains of 
virtue would cease to flow, human nature would 
slide backward by a perpetual backsliding, all the 
elements of life and prosperity would decay, so- 
ciety would become a mass of moral putrefaction, 
and the world would crumble into ruin. 

Jesus Christ uttered a profound truth, but one, 
alas, which men are slow to learn, when he affirmed 
of his own disciples: "Ye are the light of the 
world — Ye are the salt of the earth. 55 Yes, the 
Gospel of the grace of Gfod, and not the theories 
of transcendental dreamers, or the experiments of 
social philosophers, is the sovereign remedy for the 
disorders of the human race ; the reforming agent 
on which the hopes of the world rely. No power 
but that of the Gospel can pluck up the roots of 
Satan's tyranny from the inmost soul of man, and 
overthrow the despotism of sin in the world. All 
reforms which do not "lay the axe to the root of 
the tree, 55 and assail depravity in the stronghold 
of the human heart, are deceptive, superficial and 
transitory reforms. " The power that is to change 



PLEA FOR THE OLD FOUNDATIONS. 



43 



the face of the earth and the history of the race, 
is not an army, not a fleet, not a treasury," not a 
new organization of society, not the avatar of polit- 
ical liberty, "but a word of salvation — something 
of the mind and for the mind — and it is a Spirit 
renewing and sanctifying — the creative Spirit come 
down to rear again and to restore our fallen sprits. " 
And the Christian Church is Grod's own appointed 
and perpetuated Agency to give this " word of sal- 
vation" effect — the channel through which the 
new-creating Spirit flows down to man and flows 
out over the world. 

The thousand-and-one experiments which Phi- 
losophy and Civil Government have made from 
time to time, to reform mankind and elevate the 
world, on other foundations than those laid in the 
Grospel, and by means of worldly devices instead 
of the simple spiritual agency chosen of (xod, have- 
proved signal failures. Not a solitary exception 
can be named in the entire history of the race. It 
is Christianity through the agency of the Church, 
and Christianity alone, that can point to a bright 
past — to actual and permanent reformations 
achieved — to moral wildernesses reclaimed and 
made fruitful — to communities lifted from social 
and moral degradation into respectability and vir- 



44 PLEA FOR THE OLD FOUNDATIONS. 

tue and thrift — to whole nations, as recently at the 
Sandwich Islands, emancipated from ignorance and 
superstition, idolatry and social ruin, and made 
free and intelligent, and renewed and made virtu- 
ous and happy — to peoples and States arrested in 
the career of deterioration and decay, and quick- 
ened jjito life, and made vigorous and prosperous, 
— Christianity alone, I say, of all the reforming 
agents which mankind have ever tried, can point 
to such achieved results as the pledges of future 
conquests. 

The world is full of reformers in our day, made 
not a whit wiser by the sad failures of all human 
philosophies and theories to make men better — 
nor convinced by the splendid career of (rod's own 
reforming agency. " Reform," " Regeneration," 
«< Progress," are inscribed on a thousand banners, 
and the masses are upheaved, and society is shaken 
and agitated by the universal movement. But 0, 
the blindness and stupidity of the human heart, 
and the deceitful power of sin ! The world has not 
learned one lesson from all the past. It has no 
faith at this late day in the Grospel as the grand 
reforming and progressive agent of universal man- 
kind. It sneers at the "foundations" laid of old 
in Zion, and so often made mighty through Grod 



PLEA FOR THE OLD FOUNDATIONS. 45 



both to overthrow and to rebuild. In the madness 
of its folly it would even drive the ploughshare of 
a perfect and perpetual ruin through these G-od- 
laid, time-hallowed, and thoroughly-proved " foun- 
dations," and begin to build anew, on the dreams, 
or crude and shallow speculations of a conceited 
and already exploded Philosophy. I much fear, 
for one, from many of the movements of the day, 
that Providence sees occasion for one grand experi- 
ment of this sort more, to be made on a broader 
and more conspicuous theatre than any yet made, 
and to draw after it a ruin so great and severe as 
to appall the world, and force upon its stupidity 
the lessons of wisdom. 

This aspect of the times certainly is not with- 
out danger. Shame on the men bearing the name 
of Christian and belonging to the Christian Church, 
who can fellowship in any way a movement so 
radically infidel in all its affinities and tendencies ; 
who are ready to forsake these old and living and 
enduring " foundations," laid by patriarchs and 
prophets, apostles and martyrs, and cemented by 
the blood of the world's Redeemer, and honored in 
achieving all of good there is in the world, for 
new and untried, superficial and crazy foundations. 
But so it is. The numerous Fraternities and 



46 PLEA FOR THE OLD FOUNDATIONS. 

Secret Societies* which are springing up all over 
the country, innocent and good in their design as 
they are made to appear to the many who are 
drawn into them, are yet deadly hostile to the 
Kingdom of God : they are meant by their design- 
ers and guiding spirits, and their practical tend- 
ency is, to uproot and supplant the Christian 
Church. 

I hazard nothing in the remark, that Christian- 
ity — Christianity as bodied forth to man in the 
doctrines and life of the Reformed Evangelical 
Church — contains in itself all the living and active 
elements of true reformation and real progress 
there are in the world to-day. Look without the 
circle of this Power, and show me, if you can, one 
sign of any regenerating or quickened movement. 
It is a stubborn fact, which no careful student of 
history will question, that human nature, wherever 
left to itself, is in the process of a universal deteri- 
oration ; it has been deteriorating steadily and 
constantly for nearly two thousand years. The 

* Many of these Associations embrace a far larger membership, 
and greater resources, than the public are at all aware of. From 
the Annual Report of the fraternity of Odd Fellows in the United 
States, for 1852, it appears that this Society alone numbers 193,298 
members; and its receipts for that year were $1,164,331. In 
1853 its contributing members numbered 193,040, and its revenue 
amounted to $1,209,259. 



PLEA FOR THE OLD FOUNDATIONS. 



47 



u golden age ?? of the human mind, unenlightened 
by Revelation, and of human society, unble^t with 
the Gospel, is far back in the Past. Where, are 
the learning and the civilization of Antiquity ? 
The once splendid and powerful Literature of 
Egypt, Greece, and Rome, has long been a dead 
literature, accessible only to the curious and the 
learned in libraries. The Old World shows every- 
where the traces of a civilization, a prosperity, and 
a greatness which have long since decayed and 
past away. The entire unchristianized world, since 
the advent of Jesus Christ, has gone backward and 
not forward, and very decidedly. Xot the advanced 
and wide-spread Grecian civilization, united with 
Roman power and conquest, was able to arrest the 
downward tendency of human nature, or implant 
in it so much as one principle of enduring vitality. 
And but for the light and life of Christianity, shed 
on a portion of the race, one universal night of 
degeneracy and hopeless ruin had rested on the 
world to-day. J\ T ot a single system of thought, 
faith, or life, which the master-minds of Heathen 
Antiquity originated, has retained any of its origi- 
nal vigor and life; and nearly all of them, with 
their authors and trophies, lie entombed with the 
dead of many generations. 



48 PLEA FOR THE OLD FOUNDATIONS. 



But Christianity, although, older than any of 
these systems, points to an ever-brightening Future 
as the goal of hope and progress. Its u golden 
age" — its millennial period — -is yet to come. We 
have had only the dawn ; we are to have, in time, 
the perfect day. Christianity stands up amid the 
living lights of the nineteenth century, and eclipses 
them all by the power and splendor of her doc- 
trines and triumphs. It walks forth amid the 
stirring realities of the world to-day, not a decrepit 
and decayed Faith, but young as ever, and strong 
and firm in its tread, still pressing forward in the 
race over the ruins of all other systems- — the Truth 
evermore, "for its years are eternal — and in its 
origin as old as Grod, it can no more become obso- 
lete than can He, the Unchangeable and the Ever- 
lasting." 

Such " foundations," " tried and precious," has 
God laid for "the righteous" in this evil world. 
While they are preserved to us, there is hope for 
mankind. Looking to them, and building upon 
them, we shall not live or labor in vain. 



PART II.— HISTORICAL. 



Having thus laid our ''foundations' 5 in the doc- 
trine of u the everlasting Gospel," let us pass to the 
Historical part of the subject, as furnishing an apt 
and instructive illustration of the sentiment taught 
in the Scripture we have discussed. 

The founders of this Church were wise and godly 
men. They recognized the great law of Providence 
which I have thus unfolded, and acted in obedience 
to it. They were not men of mere impulses, or of 
superficial views, or of contracted principles, or of 
feeble faith. They took a broad and Christian 
view of things, and of their duty. 

They began with the "foundations." They 

toiled away at these with great patience and zeal 

and sacrifice, and consecrated them with much 

fervent prayer. They laid them deep and strong, 

and broad enough for half a century's growth. 

They rested their hope for themselves and their 

children, on the pure and perpetuated faith of the 

Gospel — on a wise and liberal provision for the 

public worship of God, and the maintenance and 
3 



50 PLEA FOE THE OLD FOUNDATIONS. 

growth of the institutions of religion. These 
massive walls, hewn out of the rock and shaped 
by great labor — of dimensions so ample for that 
period — laid with such breadth and strength as 
almost to defy the hand of the destroyer — and 
modelled arid finished in a style of architectural 
beauty, in advance of the rural taste and enter- 
prise of that age — these walls, I say, speak to-day 
with a living voice, of your fathers' wisdom and 
piety, and symbolize the breadth and energy of 
their faith. 

The " foundations" thus early and thoroughly 
laid in this community, have already brought forth 
great and blessed results. The History of this 
Church — the fruit of a little more than fifty years' 
bearing — furnishes another signal proof of G-od's 
" covenant faithfulness," and a most instructive 
and joyful illustration of the law of Providence, 
that good " foundations," vital with Gospel prin- 
ciples and life, are immensely productive of real 
and permanent prosperity. Let this history and 
these results, so far forth as I have time to spread 
them before you, speak in the ears of this great 
multitude here gathered to participate in these 
services. I count it a great privilege to stand up 



PLEA FOR THE OLD FOUNDATIONS. 51 



before you to-day on these now venerable and 
historical foundations — on such an occasion of 
solemn interest, and which inaugurates I trust a 
career of enlarged usefulness — amid such an as- 
semblage of hallowed memories as this scene 
awakens in your hearts — with so bright a Past 
smiling upon and so hopeful a Future opening be- 
fore us — and with the conscious presence of hun- 
dreds of glorified saints, here born anew and 
trained for heaven, hovering over this favored 
Sanctuary, and fully sympathizing in your feelings 
of gratitude and rejoicing, — I am most happy to 
stand up here to-day and rehearse what God the 
Lord hath wrought by means of these " foun- 
dations." 

I. The early History of this Church. 

Bloom field was early settled by a part of the 
colony of Xew Englanders which founded Newark. 
Newark's history goes back to May, 1666, forty-six 
years after the landing of our Pilgrim Fathers on 
Plymouth Rock, and two years after the settlement 
of Elizabethtown 9 which was the first English colony 
planted this side of the Hudson. Its settlers emi- 
grated from Guilford, Branford, Milford and New 



52 PLEA FOR THE OLD FOUNDATIONS. 

Haven, Connecticut. You come therefore from Pu- 
ritan ancestors. This fair and flourishing region of 
East Jersey was mainly reclaimed from its wilder- 
ness state by Puritan enterprise, and was early 
planted with Puritan principles. The original 
foundations of Christ's Kingdom here, and of the 
intelligence and thrift of the people, were floated 
over the ocean in the faith and principles of the 
Pilgrim Fathers, and embodied the choicest 
principles, and most vigorous life, of the glorious 
Reformation of the century which preceded their 
advent. 

The materials out of which this Church and 
Congregation were formed, originally belonged to 
the first Presbyterian churches of Newark and 
Orange. More than a century must have elapsed 
after the settlement of Bloomfield before it had a 
church of its own. During all this time the people 
had to worship Grod in those distant sanctuaries, 
if they worshipped Him at all ; and this fact may 
account for the slow growth of Bloomfield for that 
long period. 

The incipient measures for the organization of 
a separate Congregation and Church in Bloomfield 
were taken early in the year 1794, by the members 



PLEA FOR THE OLD FOUNDATIONS. 53 



of the above-named churches resident here. The 
Presbytery of New York then extended over all 
Southern New York, and all this part of New- 
Jersey, and the matter was carried up before that 
body, at their meeting in May of that year, for 
advice and action. Presbytery favored the move- 
ment, and appointed a committee to confer with a 
committee from the churches of Newark and 
Orange, in reference to the matter. The meeting 
of these joint committees was held on the 16th of 
June following, at the house of Mr, Joseph Davis, 
in this village, and was opened with a sermon by 
Dr. Rogers, then pastor of the First Presbyterian 
Church in the city of New York. After prayer 
for direction from God, and conference, a Petition 
was presented to the Committee of Presbytery, 
signed by no less than ninety-eight heads of fami- 
lies, requesting to be formally organized into a dis" 
tinct Congregation, and to take the name of the 
Third Presbyterian Church in the township of 
Newark. # Why the Congregation w r as not organ- 

* What now forms the townships of Orange and Bloomfield wag 
then a part of Newark township. The First Church of Newark, and 
the First Church of what is now Orange, are much older than this* 
The Congregation, however, never seems to have adopted this 
name. It bore for a short time the name of Wardsesson, a cor 



54 PLEA FOR THE OLD FOUNDATIONS. 

ized on the spot does not appear. The Committee 
reported to Presbytery the next month, by whom 
the petitioners were advised to organize them- 
selves into a separate Congregation for the worship 
of Grod. This was done as soon as practicable there- 
after. Too feeble still to support a minister of 
their own, they were dependent on Presbytery for 
supplies the greater part of the time, with the 
exception of one year, during which the Rev. 
Calvin White officiated as stated supply, until the 
close of the year 1799. 

There was no Church in existence here, however, 
until four years after the Congregation was planted. 
This Church was organized, after the Presbyterian 
form of government, in the month of June, 1798, 
by the Rev. Jedediah Chapman, then pastor of the 
First Church in Orange, acting as a Committee of 
the Presbytery of New York. Eighty-two mem- 
bers constituted it, fifty-nine of whom were from 
his own church, and twenty-three from the First 

ruption of the old Indian original name, Watssessing, given to the 
old School-house Hill and the plains adjacent, as appears from the 
ancient Deeds of some of your ancestors. At a meeting of the 
Congregation, duly notified, held October 13th, 1796, the name of 
Wardsesson was dropped, and Bloomfield adopted by " a large 
majority of votes.'' — See Appendix. 



PLEA FOR THE OLD FOUNDATIONS. 



55 



Church in Newark. Of this original number, two* 
only I believe remain among its living membership. 
The ruling Elders and Deacons chosen and ordain- 
ed at the time of its organization, were Simeon 
Bakhcin, Ephraim Jlorris* Isaac DodcL and 
Joseph Crane. 

In the year 1S00, under the ministry of Mr. 
Jackson, the form of government of this Church 
was changed, and the New England or congrega- 
tional system, in a modified form, was adopted. 
It appears from the Church Recordst that this 
change, never sanctioned by the Society, was very 
informally yet quietly voted by the Church, at 
an ordinary Church meeting held on the 12th 
of February. 1800. Mr. J. was evidently the 
author of this transaction, as £he manner of 
introducing the change shows. During his pas- 
torate the Church sent its delegates to the Mm- 

* These are. Israel Crane. Esq., who was early chosen a ruling 
Elder, and still retains the ofnce. and who bore a prominent part 
in the erection of the house, and to whose prudent and enlightened 
counsels, and acknowledged ability and enterprise, the Church and 
Parish will ever feel their indebtedness, and who in a green old 
age is permitted to rejoice in your prosperity : and Mrs. Betsey 
King. 

f Vol. i, pp. 60, 61 



56 PLEA FOR THE OLD FOUNDATIONS. 



ris County Presbytery, of which he was a mem- 
ber, which was essentially Congregational in every 
thing but the name, and conformed to its rules of 
discipline. The great body of the Church, how- 
ever, although they acquiesced in the thing while 
Mr. Jackson remained their Pastor, were greatly 
dissatisfied with the change and with its practical 
workings, and on the very day of his dismission 
voted, on considering their ecclesiastical relations, 
to apply to the Presbytery of Jersey* for supplies, 
thus practically returning to their old " founda- 
tions. " Soon after, by a formal and public vote, 
the Church readopted its original Presbyterian 
Constitution and usage. And on this Platform 
it has remained ever since, unshaken and at 
peace. 

The materials for this Church edifice were in 

part collected in 1796. The work was begun in the 

spring following, and the corner-stone laid by Dr. 

McWhorter, Pastor of the First Church of Newark, 

May 8, 1797, and the walls were carried up 

during that season. The house was not finished 

however, within, until 1800, although it began to 

* The Presbytery of Jersey was the old Presbytery of New York 
under a new name 5 i. e. the Presbytery which organizes the 
Church, and to which it has always belonged except the time of 
Mr. Jackson's pastorate. 



PLEA FOR THE OLD FOUNDATION^ 5T 

be occupied in the summer of 1799. Previous to 
which time, the congregation worshipped for a 
while in the Franklin School-house, but during 
most of the time in the house of Joseph Davi . 
The dimensions of the original edifice were 55 by 
70 feet, exclusive of the tower. 

.The first plan was to build a much smaller frame 
house as a temporary provision, and the work 
was actually begun upon it. But the younger and 
more enterprising men remonstrated. They want- 
ed "no permanent temporary house/ 7 as they 
wisely and nobly declared. bur one that would 
do good to future generations.' 7 And hence they 
resolved at length to erect this stone temple, of 
ample dimensions. 

Considering their strength and means, it was a 
great undertaking for them ; and its achievement 
a signal proof of what a few resolute souls can do 
when they have " a mind to work," and when 
moved to do it by love to Grod, and faith in his 
promises. It was a work that cost them a great 
deal of real sacrifice and self-denial, as well as 
vigorous effort. 

It seemed almost wholly an enterprise of faith. 
3* 



58 



PLEA FOR THE OLD FOUNDATIONS. 



It was built without foreign aid ; # while the 
church was yet in its cradle, and without a Pas- 
tor ; and when money was scarce indeed : built 

* Except a donation of $140 from Major- General Bloomfield at 
the time of his visit here, while the walls were being carried up. 
Mrs. Bloomfield at the same time presented the church "with a 
very elegant gilt Bible.' 7 

This gift was providential. And there hangs a story upon it 
too interesting to be lost. "A day or two previous to his visit, 
[Gen. Bloomfield's, a graphic and detailed account of which may 
be found in the " Sentinel" of July 12, 1797,] two of the Building 
Committee [Joseph Davis and Simeon Baldwin, to whose enlight- 
ened views, and noble efforts, and unceasing prayers, this church 
owes a great debt] had gone to New York to purchase a cargo of 
lime. They found the lime, and got the terms on which it might 
b e had. In consulting what to do, they met with the difficulty of 
an empty treasury. When they left home, there was no money on 
hand to pay for the lime. They walked the streets in distress, not 
knowing what to do ; but finally concluded — This is the Lord's 
House — He must and he will provide, and we ought to trust his word 
and promise. Animated with these reflections, they boldly closed 
the bargain for the cargo, and directed the Captain to sail up to 
Bellville and deliver it. They returned. And the next morning 
Mr. Baldwin went over to the builders with a heavy heart, think- 
ing, We cannot pay for the lime, and must discharge the hands and 
stop the work. But he found the workmen all engaged and in fine 
spirits. ' Good-morning. Well, have you bought the lime ?' '0 
yes ! but we have no money to pay for it, and the work must stop.' 
1 O no ! that must not be : there is money enough in the treasury.' 
1 Where did you get it?' 'Why, General Bloomfield was here 
yesterday, and made a donation to the trustees of $140 to help 
forward the work.' 'Ay, the Lord will provide for his own work : 
let us doubt no more.' And so the lime was delivered and paid 
for, and there was enough to finish the house," See Appendix. 



PLEA FOB THE OLD FOUNDATIONS. 



50 



mainly by the people themselves turning out in rota- 
tion, and working with their own hands and teams, 
almost to the entire neglect of their worldly affairs ; 
and yet somehow, as tradition says, they were 
never more prospered : and built throughout too 
in the most thorough and substantial manner. It 
is truly affecting to hear the stories which are 
told us of their self-denials, and straits, and shifts, 
to raise the means to build this noble and commo- 
dious Sanctuary, the men binding themselves to 
wear no new coat, and the women not behind 
them in spirit, until it was finished and paid for, 
and the altar of their faith set up in it. 

And who can doubt that the wisdom and Spirit 
of God guided them in this work ? They laid no 
contracted, or superficial. or temporary foundations. 
They were not satisfied to meet their own imme- 
diate wants. They devised liberal things. With 
a forethought and an enterprise worthy of the 
men. they planted for the future — gave sufficient 
breadth and capacity to these walls to enclose the 
growth of fifty years. And there is no estimating 
the good resulting from this wise and liberal fore- 
thought and expenditure. There has been room 
for expansion. Presbyterianism has retained the 



60 



PLEA FOE THE OLD FOUNDATIONS. 



ground nearly entire. You have been one people. 
You still cling to these old foundations ; and have 
now extended them to meet your enlarged wants, 
rather than divide. " In union there is strength. " 
The experiment here proves it. 

IT. — Its G-rowth. 

This Church fairly started on its active career 
with the year 1800. Its previous work was pre- 
paratory only. It now took the field armed for 
action. It had a sanctuary to worship in, a con- 
gregation gathered, an organized body of believers, 
and a pastor chosen, who began his labors on the 
first Sabbath in January of that year. Soon 
after there were earnests of good — earnests of its 
future history. Under its first pastor, and during 
the first year of his ministry, a powerful revival 
of religion blessed it, and nearly one hundred 
were added to the church, forty-seven at one 
communion. 

The vitality and growth of this Church, thus 
early and signally developed, have continued un- 
abated down to the present moment. Its progress 
has been steady, healthy, constant, until it has 
reached its present strength and position — number- 



PLEA FOR THE OLD FOUNDATIONS. 



61 



ing now nearly 500 living members, and consider- 
ably larger than any other church belonging to 
Newark Presbytery. 

The number of members at its organization was 
82. There have been added to it since, on certifi- 
cate, 283, and on profession of their faith, 895 ; 
making in all, 1256 members received into the 
communion of this church ; a yearly average of 
23, dating from January, 1800, when it began its 
career. 

During the same period, 484 have been dis- 
missed to join other churches, 245 have died, and 
44 have been suspended ; leaving 487 as the 
actual number in communion with it to-day. 

During this time also there have been baptized, 
179 adults, and 1340 infants : total number of 
baptisms, 1519. 

These are indeed precious and glorious direct 
results. Few churches, planted in rural districts, 
where the population is fixed and not large, 
have been so signally favored and increased, or 
have more abundant occasion to thank Grod and 
take courage. The ' ; foundations" laid with so 
much faith and sacrifice and toil, and breadth of 
views, and enlightened forethought, have been 



62 PLEA FOR THE OLD FOUNDATIONS. 



-wonderfully nourished and honored of the Great 
Head of the Church to the saving of souls. 

III. — Its Pastors. 

This Church has had six Pastors in all, four of 
whom are still living. 

The first Pastor was the Rev. Abel Jackson, a 
member of the Morris County Presbytery, who 
began his labors in January, 1800, and was duly 
installed by the above-named Presbytery, in the 
fall of the same year. He continued his labors 
for eleven years, and was greatly blessed. Towards 
the close of his ministry, however, very serious 
difficulties arose in reference to him, which, for 
two or three of the last years of his pastorate, 
greatly distracted the church, and resulted in his 
dismission on the 8th of November, 1810.* He 

* There was a considerable difficulty as to the form of his dis- 
mission. To compromise the matter, the church consented to call 
a Council of Ministers to consider the question of the expediency 
of his dismission, composed of representatives from both Presby- 
teries, Morris County and Jersey. From the former, Rev. Messrs. 
Grover and Constant, with Messrs. Carmicke, Mapes and Cor win, 
delegates, (who were finally admitted ;) and from the latter, Drs. 
Richards, McDowell and Hilyer, and Rev. Mr. Picton. The Coun- 
cil advised his dismission, and the Parish voted Mr. J ackson $400 
" as the terms of his dismission." Both parties then agreed that 



PLEA FOR THE OLD FOUNDATIONS. 63 



continued to reside here for some years after this, 
and nothing but the great firmness and prudence 
of the majority of the people saved the Congrega- 
tion from actual division. There are documents 
of great interest and ability spread out upon your 
Church Records, illustrative of this remark, and 
proving that there were men of clear heads and 
sound discretion, and who wielded a powerful pen, 
in the councils of this Society at that period. 
These difficulties prevented the settlement of 
another pastor for a considerable time. 

The Rev. Cyrus Gilder sleeve was finally chosen 
to succeed him . He was installed by the Presbytery 
of Jersey, March 21, 1812. On November 6th, fol- 
lowing, the church again formally adopted the 
Presbyterian form of church government, # which 

the relation should be formally dissolved by the Morris County 
Presbytery, which was done the next week. — Church Records, vol. 
L, pp. 148-152, 

* There was some opposition to this, and a few members withdrew 
and went to Caldicell, which still adhered to the Morris County Pres- 
bytery. It seems, therefore, that this church was early called to 
the ordeal to which many of our sister churches are, unfortunately 
for their peace, subjected at the present time. The conflict 
between the two great Ecclesiastical Systems of this country, 
which the rashness and ambition of a few attached to each is fast 
bringing on in various quarters, has already been once met and 
settled on this field. 



64 



PLEA FOR THE OLD FOUNDATIONS. 



it had observed from the day of Mr. Jackson's dis- 
mission, and on the 8th of the same month, 
elected ten ruling elders, viz. : Joseph Crane, 
Joseph Davis, Ichabod Baldwin, and Israel Crane, 
already Deacons, together with David Taylor, 
Nathaniel Crane, Moses Dodd, John Dodd, Hiram 
Dodd, and Josiah Ward, who, on the following 
Sabbath, were set apart to this office. Mr. 
Gildersleeve's pastoral relation continued until 
May, 1818. Both these early pastors have de- 
ceased. 

The Church was again destitute of a Pastor two 
years. And during this interval, a large outlay 
was made in completing the Steeple, and in re- 
seating and re-flooring the entire house. The Bell, 
whose sweet tones have for more than thirty years 
invited you here, was a present from Major 
Nathaniel Crane, one of the original members of 
this church, and who subsequently left $10,000 
towards the support of the gospel in the West 
Village, whenever a church should be organized 
there. 

Mr. Gildersleeve's successor was the Rev. 
Gideon N. Judd, a member of the Presbytery of 
Columbia, who still lives to labor in the common 



PLEA FOR THE OLD FOUNDATIONS, 6S 

vineyard. He began his labors in May, 1820, and 
was installed on the 9th of August following, by 
the Jersey Presbytery. On the 30th of August, 
1822, there was another election of elders, and 
Caleb Baldwin, Eleazar Baldivin and Zophar B. 
Dodd, were chosen to that office. 

Mr. Judd ? s ministry appears to have been sig- 
nally honored of Grod in the conversion of souls, 
and in consolidating and quickening all the ele- 
ments of growth and prosperity existing among 
you. Precious revivals were the fruit of it. Order, 
system and activity were given to every thing. 
The spirit of benevolence was awakened by him, 
and that simple yet efficient system matured and 
introduced, which has been productive of results 
great and blessed. He wrought on the "founda- 
tions" which Grod has laid in the Gospel, and by 
his providence. His preaching was scriptural, prac- 
tical and experimental, and his pastoral labors 
faithful and abundant. This Church owes not a 
little of its character and strength to the piety, 
wisdom and fidelity of that beloved and now vene- 
rated Father. 

He remained your pastor until April 15, 1834. 
His stated labors, however, ceased some months 



66 PLEA FOR THE OLD FOUNDATIONS. 



before. Appointed Associate Secretary of the Amer- 
ican Home Missionary Society, and wishing to 
make trial of its duties before accepting the office, 
the Rev. Ebenezer Seymour was engaged to 
supply the pulpit in the meanwhile. In Mr. 
Judd's own language, £< the importance of the 
work to which he was appointed, the prospect of 
improved health, and of seeing his place immedi- 
ately supplied by the settlement of Mr. Seymour," 
made it to appear his duty to resign his charge. 

The Rev. Ebenezer Seymour ', a member of the 
Presbytery of Troy, N. Y., was the fourth Pastor. 
A unanimous call was put into his hands on the 
same day that Presbytery dismissed Mr. Judd, and 
he was duly installed on the 13th of May, 1834. 
He had already been laboring for some months as 
a stated supply. 

On the 2d of November following, Matthias 
Smith, Bethuel Ward, Elias J. Crane, and Eli- 
phalet Hall were chosen Elders, and were set apart 
to that office on the 7th of December ensuing. 

Mr. Seymour remained your Pastor until April 
26, 1847. He is still one of us, filling a highly 
responsible and useful place, enjoying the good-will 
and esteem of his former people, and by his kind 



PLEA FOR THE OLD FOUNDATIONS. 67 



and considerate course reversing the saying, that 
" Ministers make the worst of parishioners." 

The records of this church for thirteen years fur- 
nish the proof that Mr. Seymour, while he served 
you in the ministry, was a highly successful ser- 
vant of the Lord. The church continued to prosper 
and increase under him. Extensive revivals tes- 
tify that Grod wrought with him. He wisely fol- 
Jowed in the footsteps of his predecessor, and ma- 
tured and developed the plans of usefulness which 
he had introduced. Your Lecture-Room and Par- 
sonage were both built while he was your pastor, 
and his exertions greatly aided in their erection. 

It was during his pastorate, viz., August, 1838, 
that our West Bloomfield brethren, so many of 
whom, with their Pastor, we are happy to greet 
here to-day, withdrew and built a separate altar 
in their own village, May they be provoked to lay 
such foundations as their fathers helped to lay 
here, and realize from them, in coming generations, 
results as extensive and precious! This Church 
dismissed for this purpose almost as many of her 
members as at first constituted it. 

After a brief vacancy you called for your next 
Pastor, the Rev. George Duffield, Jun., a mem- 



68 PLEA FOR THE OLD FOUNDATIONS. 



ber of the Presbytery of Brooklyn, N. Y. He 
began his labors in August, 1847, and was in- 
stalled November 4th, following, by the Presby- 
tery of Newark. His brief ministry was also 
very successful. Entering on his labors with a 
great and somewhat divided charge, he fully "oc- 
cupied" his talents, and was permitted to reap no 
scanty harvest. The Holy Spirit, who had so 
gloriously visited the people under former minis- 
tries, honored his in a similar way. A large acces- 
sion was made to the church during this period. 

Called to exercise his ministry in the city of 
Philadelphia, he resigned his charge, and was dis- 
missed from this church December 23, 1851 . 

In 1848, David Conger and Warren S. Bald- 
win were chosen and ordained to the office of the 
Eldership. 

My own ministry among you began in April of 
the ensuing year. I was installed by the Presby- 
tery of Newark on the 10th of November follow- 
ing. For several years I had been a member of 
the Presbytery of Brooklyn, and engaged in edi- 
torial labor as the conductor of the "National 
Preacher " and of the "Biblical Repository." I 
was called here, however, from the Second Con- 



PLEA FOE. THE OLD FOUNDATIONS. 69 

gregational Church of Mil ford, Ct.,* which I felt 
obliged to leave after only one year's service, for 
reasons connected with my health. Coming to 
you greatly prostrated, and having to struggle with 
a depressing disease, the effect of over-labor during 
a season of great religious interest there, and able 
as yet to perform but a part of the pastoral labor 
connected with this large parish, I am conscious 
of having greatly taxed your forbearance, and 
labored under serious disadvantages. Of my man- 
ner of living and teaching among you. you are the 
living witnesses. But God has not been unmindful 
of his promise, I feel constrained to say. These 
old "foundations" have not yet lost their virtue. It 
lias beenyourPastor's privilege. standing here where 
so many of his brethren before him have stood, and 

* It is worthy of note that a considerable portion of your ancestors 
came from Milford. The names of many of the old families in both 
places are the same. The First Church there was organized as 
early as 1639 ; nineteen years after the Pilgrim Fathers landed at 
Plymouth. 

Having taken away one of Milford's Pastors, it was but right 
that you should give them one in return. And it is pleasing to 
know that one of your own worthy sons, the Rev.Stepheii G.Dodd. is 
now happily and usefully settled in his place. It was my privi- 
lege to preach his ordination sermon there a little more than a 
year since. Milford and Bloomfield are bound together by many 
ties. 



70 PLEA FOR THE OLD FOUNDATIONS. 

wept and taught and prayed and rejoiced, to see 
G-od's Word take effect — to see the spirit of deep 
solemnity and tearful interest settle down upon 
thisSanctuary — to see yonder Lecture-Room nearly 
filled with inquirers after salvation — to sit down 
with many of you in his Study and point you to 
the Saviour — to introduce not a few of you into 
the membership of this Church — and to see these 
enlarged and improved foundations laid and finished 
in a spirit and with a liberality worthy of your 
fathers' memory, and of your history. 

We have now reached the limit of your pastoral 
history ; all beyond this moment is conjecture and 
uncertainty. But whatever becomes of the exist- 
ing relation, or the present incumbent, your 
"foundations" remain to you. Your Pastors die 
or leave you, but not their principles, not the fruits 
of their labors. They are vital, they abide with 
you ; their voices are liviug voices, speaking out 
from these walls to-day; their life is a perpetuated 
life, to bless this people, because identified with 
these u foundations. " 

Let us gather into a single view the results of 
these several pastors' labors, so far as they appear 
from accessions to the Church. 



PLEA FOR THE OLD FOUNDATIONS. 71 



There were received into communion with this 
Church, during the ministry of Mr. Jackson, 
eleven years, 196. 

During Mr. Gilder sleeve's, little over six years, 
130. 

During Dr. Judd's, fourteen years, 361. 

During Mr. Seymour's, thirteen years, 275. 

During Mr. Duffield's, four years and four 
months, 125. 

And during my own, thus far, one year and 
nine months, 77. # 

These periods comprise just fifty years of pas- 
toral service. 

IV. — REVIVALS. 

This Church has been frequently and signally 
favored with seasons of Revival. There have been 
Revivals under every Pastor, and some of them 
were revivals of very great power and interest. 
All of them were evidently Revivals of £< pure re- 
ligion andundefiled" — healthy, and promotive only 
of peace and strength — the result of God's bless- 

* Besides these, a large number connected with our several 
Schools, who have been hopefully converted from time to time, 
have preferred to connect with their several churches at home. 



72 PLEA FOE THE OLD FOUNDATIONS- 

ing on sound and faithful pastoral teaching and 
labor. 

One fact in proof of this is significant, viz., that 
of the 1,256 members received into this church 
since its organization — and a very large majority 
of them were the fruit of Revivals — only forty- 
four have been expelled ; and discipline has not 
been neglected. This is in the ratio of one to 
twenty -eight received. The miserable policy — a 
policy as unwise in the end as it is unchristian in 
principle, which is adopted by too many churches 
to swell their numbers, or gain proselytes — of ad- 
mitting members hastily, has never been coun- 
tenanced by this Church. Unusual care and cau- 
tion, as the records show, have, from the first, been 
exercised on this point. The element of all these 
revivals — of this rapid growth and expansion — has 
been the simple Truth of the Gospel, disconnected 
with all novel measures and undue excitements — 
the Truth acting on thoroughly evangelical and 
tried foundations, through systematic and estab- 
lished agencies, and by the ordinary and Heaven- 
appointed means for advancing the Redeemer's 
Kingdom. 

There have been no less than sixteen distinct 



PLEA FOR THE OLD FOUNDATIONS. 



73 



revivals of religion since the period of Mr. Jack- 
son's settlement. The first year of his labors was 
signalized by the outpoured Spirit. The Church, 
yet in its infancy, just started on its career, just 
blessed with a pastor, was visited from on high. 
It would appear as if nearly one hundred were 
hopefully converted in this first visitation of Grod. 
Many of the oldest living members of this Church 
were among the fruits of it. For that early day 
it was a " great Revival." An interesting account 
of it was published at the time by Mr. Jackson, 
in the New York Missionary Magazine, vol. iii. 
In 1808, another precious season of refreshing was 
enjoyed, and fifty or more, it would appear, were 
quickened into life. 

In 1814, under Mr. Griidersleeve, there was a 
very thorough and extensive work of the Spirit, 
reviving the church and converting sinners ; and 
again, in 1317, there was another Revival of a 
similar character. At least fifty, it is supposed, 
were born of the Spirit at each time. 

The year 1820, the first of Mr. Judd's ministry, 

was another of Grod's "set times" to favor your 

Zion. This revival continued for nearly a year, 
4 



H PLEA FOR THE OLD FOUNDATIONS. 

and extended to all parts of the congregation, and 
shook the church into new life ; and more than 
one hundred were, it is believed, renewed by- 
Divine grace. It was a thorough work, embracing 
all classes, and leaving permanent evidence that 
it was of Grod. " The work," says Mr. Judd, 
"was characterized by order, silence, deep solem- 
nity, and pungent conviction of sin." 

Again, in 1823, a portion of the Church was 
revived, and some souls were made alive to God. 

Again, in 1825, the Spirit was poured out upon 
a portion of the Church, and about fifty are believed 
to have been born into the Kingdom. 

The year 1830 was another remarkable season 
of interest and ingathering. In the language of 
Mr. Judd himself, describing it four years after- 
ward, " the Lord appeared in the midst of this 
people, in the power of his glory and riches of his 
grace. This visit of divine mercy lasted for many 
months ; a portion of the Church, however, seemed 
not to know that the Lord was among them; 
others were humbled and excited to importunate 
prayer, and great activity in the service of Grod. 
The subjects of renewing grace during this work 



PLEA FOR THE OLD FOUNDATIONS. 



75 



are believed to have been more than one hun- 
dred."* 

As Mr. Judd's labors began with a revival, so 
they were to close with a revival. Tn November, 
1833, another work of special grace began, which 
continued all the following winter. " This gra- 
cious visitation from on high," writes Mr. Judd, 
"was more distinguished for its sanctifying, 
quickening, and comforting influence upon G-od's 
professing people, and on those who already in- 
dulged hope, but had not publicly taken hil vows 
upon them, than by the number of conversions 
from the world. Of these there were thirty or 
thirty-five ; but rarely does the Church experience 
a season of more delightful refreshing. The 
silence of the sepulchre reigned in the frequent 
and crowded assemblies convened for worship. 
Daily prayer-meetings at sunrise, or before the 
dawn of day, were held in different neighborhoods 
during the winter. Many of the members of the 
Church exhibited an unusual tenderness of con- 
science, spirit of prayer, and devotion to the ser- 
vice of Grod." This was the winter that Mr. Sey- 



* See Church Manual for all the quotations from Dr. Judd, 



76 PLEA FOR THE OLD FOUNDATIONS. 

mour mainly supplied the pulpit in the absence of 
Mr. Judd, although the accessions to the Church 
which were the fruits of this revival, were mostly 
made previous to Mr. J.'s dismission. 

During the winter and spring of 1837, while 
Mr. Seymour was your pastor, another revival of 
remarkable interest and power was enjoyed. The. 
work reached and seemed to impress the entire 
congregation. More than one hundred souls were 
the hopeful subjects of that work. 

Dufing the next winter there was a pleasing 
revival in the Montgomery Neighborhood, which 
greatly changed the moral character of that por- 
tion of the Society. Rev. George W. Wood, now 
one of the Secretaries of the American Board, had 
charge of the pulpit for some months during this 
season of interest, and his labors here are held in 
grateful remembrance by many. 

Two years after, in the winter and spring of 
1840, the Holy Spirit was again signally poured 
out. The interest in the Church was so great 
that, in the Central and North part of the congre- 
gation, prayer-meetings, held before sunrise and 
begun in the depth of winter, and continued with- 
out interruption for five months, were held. Some- 



PLEA FOR THE OLD FOUNDATIONS. 



77 



where between seventy and one hundred is the es- 
timated number of the converts. 

In the spring of 1843 the Church was in a mea- 
sure revived again, and about twenty it is thought 
passed from death unto life. 

One general and one partial revival occurred 
under Mr. Duffield's ministry. The first, in 1848, 
a few months after his settlement, was a precious 
and extensive one, and fruitful in conversions. 
He estimated the number of converts at from sev- 
enty to seventy-five. The Church Records show 
an accession of fifty-six during that year, on pro- 
fession of their faith, the most of whom, it is pre- 
sumed, were the fruits of it. 

Again, in the winter of 1850, there was special 
religious interest. But this time it seems to have 
commenced in the Schools and been chiefly con- 
fined to them, except in the Montgomery district, 
which was again specially favored. Mr. Craig- 
head assisted Mr. Duffield in the work there. The 
gathering of a Church in that neighborhood was 
for awhile seriously entertained, and favored, I 
believe, by the pastor. 

In the winter and spring of 1853, under the 
ministry of your present pastor, this Church was 



SF8 PLEA FOB, THE OLD FOUNDATIONS. 



again greatly favored. This revival occurred un- 
der the regular ministrations of the pastor. It 
was a silent, deep, and pungent work, In some 
of its features it was peculiar. It was preceded 
by several months of great seriousness on the part 
of many of the impenitent. The work of conver- 
sion began before any part of the Church seemed 
stirred up. More than two hundred different per- 
sons attended upon the meeting for inquiry, the 
most of whom (those who were not converted) re- 
mained more or less anxious for months. And yet 
the Church did not generally rally to the work, 
and consequently only a part of the abundant har- 
vest thus prepared to our hands by the Word and 
Spirit of Grod, was gathered by us. Still we have 
reason to think that nearly one hundred, including 
those in the Schools, were savingly reached by 
this Divine visitation. It was really more of an 
" awakening" than a " revival," in its character. 

This may with propriety, therefore, be called a 
Revival Church. " Precious in the sight of the 
Lord" have these " foundations" been. The Holy 
Spirit has loved to visit and to water them. About 
one thousand souls, it is believed, have been 
gathered to Christ, during these harvest seasons. 



PLEA FOR THE OLD FOUNDATIONS. 



79 



These revivals have been the streams that have so 
oft made glad your hearts, refreshed your souls, 
and caused this vineyard to flourish as the garden 
of the Lord. They have given character and ac- 
tivity to all your growth. — If there is one Church 
on earth more than another that ought to love, and 
pray, and labor for Revivals of religion, it would 
seem that you are that Church. 

Planted as this Zion is amidst these numerous 
Educational Institutions, which are laying the 
foundations of so many characters and lives, and 
sending forth their streams of influence all over the 
country — -your spacious galleries almost filled from 
Sabbath to Sabbath with dear youth from abroad 
here being trained — there is a double interest at- 
tached to these Revivals, and a double responsibility 
devolved on those who seek to maintain these 
" foundations." How disastrous on the cause of 
Learning — on the spirit, prosperity, and efficiency 
of these Schools — were a dead or corrupt Church ! a 
community careless, immoral, and irreligious ! But 
now they not only serve to strengthen our hands, 
and furnish us with hopeful material to work upon, 
but they themselves are made to breathe an atmo- 
sphere vital with religious life and evangelical doc- 



80 PLEA FOR THE OLD FOUNDATIONS. 

trine ; and through their own ever- widening chan- 
nels they help to spread and perpetuate these Gos- 
pel "foundations." 

One feature of the Revivals among this people is 
somewhat peculiar, and I must say has served to 
modify somewhat my views of the theory of re- 
vivals, at least in one respect. I had believed — it 
is pretty generally believed- — that sinners wrought 
upon deeply under a revival pressure but not con- 
verted, are thereafter less hopeful subjects than 
others unconverted. This is unquestionably true 
of all spurious excitements. But here, as a 
general thing, it has been different. Those 
awakened and interested but not gathered in, 
during one revival, have been the first-fruits of 
the next. The impressions made during one spe- 
cial visitation, the Spirit has kept alive until an- 
other. The seeds sown in these seasons of special 
labor and prayer have sprung up first and ripened, 
when the next harvest-time arrived. This fact 
shows that man cannot philosophize upon the ope- 
rations of God's Spirit with any certainty. It 
shows also that there is Gospel truth and convic- 
tion enough all the while in the souls of many sin- 
ners, to bring them to Christ, and yet they will per- 



PLEA FOR THE OLD FOUNDATIONS. SI 

ish, unless a revival courage, and revival sympa- 
thy and spirit of prayer, come to their help. 

V. — Expenditures and Benevolence. 

The original dimensions of this Edifice, as I have 
said, were fifty-five feet by seventy, exclusive of 
the Tower ; as now enlarged, fifty five by eighty- 
four. The Galleries are unusually broad and 
spacious. It will accommodate from 1,000 to 
1,200 persons. 

From the manner in which the house was built, 
the first cost of it is not known. The opinions of 
experienced men say about 814.000.* In 1819, 
the Steeple to the Tower was completed, and the 
interior refitted, at an expense of over 84,000. And 
the cost of the present enlargement, refitting, im- 
provements, and refurnishing, amounts to nearly 
$9,000. Making the total cost of your sanctuary 
as it now stands, exclusive of repairs, about 
827,000. In addition to this, in 1S40. your com- 
modious Brick Lecture-Room was built, at an ex- 
pense of 82.500. And again, in 1S42. an expense 
of 83.500 was incurred in providing yourselves 

* Such a building of course could not be put up note for any 
such amount of money. 

4* 



82 



PLEA FOR THE OLD FOUNDATIONS. 



with a Parsonage, quite in keeping with the other 
foundations. Total cost of original outlay for 
buildings, about $33,000. 

While doing thus liberally for yourselves, you 
have not been unmindful of the claims of Christian 
Benevolence abroad. I cannot go into this branch 
of the subject as fully as I could wish. The his- 
tory is full of instruction, and settles three im- 
portant principles. 1. The immense advantage 
of systematic action, 2. Revivals quicken and 
increase the benevolence of the Church. 3. A 
wise and liberal expenditure in laying the founda- 
tions at home, is the surest way to meet the de- 
mands from abroad. 

Previous to the adoption of your present efficient 
system in 1832, little, comparatively, was done. 
Some Societies were organized, and occasional ef- 
forts made to sustain them. The first was the 
Bible Society, in 1817, the year after the Ameri- 
can Bible Society wa£ formed. This lasted eight 
years, and besides expending considerable sums 
for Bibles and Testaments for distribution in the 
township, made several donations to the Parent 
Society, the largest of which was $50. In 1829 
a new interest was awakened in behalf of the 



PLEA FOR THE OLD FOUNDATIONS. 83 



Bible, and $75 were given, which was about the 
average annual gift until 1832. 

The first Missionary organization was the Fe- 
male Mite Society, which contributed from $50 
to $80, annually, to the American Board, until 
1825, when a Male and a Female Foreign Mission- 
ary Association were formed, whose aggregate an- 
nual gifts, until 1832, were not much over $100. 
In 1829 the Bloom field Juvenile Tract Society was 
formed, which raised, the four years it existed, 
S244. Beginning with 1826, the total sum 
raised yearly for Benevolence abroad, down to 
1832, so far as can be ascertained, averaged only 
about $182. 

At the close of the year 1832, the Plan of benev- 
olent operations now in force, was adopted by the 
congregation, and has been ever since rigidly ad- 
hered to, with most happy results. The plan 
was then new and untried. But experience had 
taught the inefficiency of the former system. 
Experience has also taught us, in the workings of 
this plan, for more than twenty years, the value 
and power of an established system, simple in 
its machinery, and bringing the great subject of 
Benevolence, in some of its relations, before all 



84 PLEA FOR THE OLD FOUNDATIONS. 



the people monthly on the Sabbath. The total 
amount of the first year was $502, more than 
twice that of the previous year. The average 
amount reported by the Board of Benevolence 
for the next fourteen years — although during 
this period the West Bloomfield brethren with- 
drew, and great commercial distress was every- 
where experienced, and $6,000 paid for the 
Lecture-Room and Parsonage — was $609. From 
1847 on to the present, there has been a marked 
advance. The sum, in 1848, was $712 ; in 1849, 
$1,039; in 1850, $1,089; in 1851, $1,291; in 
1852, $1,614 ; and the present year, $1,655. 

These sums do not embrace the direct contri- 
butions of individuals, nor of the several Schools 
attached to the congregation. These, if added, 
would greatly swell the aggregate. # The total 
sum thus reported through the Board of Benevo- 
lence since January, 1833, is $16,434. 

We must admit, from this condensed and im- 
perfect review, that the system works well. These 
figures, considering your comparative pecuniary 
means, show that your reputation for liberality is 

* Our contributions for the last year exceeded $2,000, adding 
what the Schools gave, 



PLEA FOR THE OLD FOUNDATIONS. 85 



not wholly groundless. You could not have given 
away so much and thrived under it, had you not 
laid such generous foundations at home. And 
now that you have expended so much more to en- 
large and improve them, I shall confidently look 
for a proportionate increase in your liberality ; 
and it will be forthcoming, unless I have falsified 
your history. # 

YI. Ministers and Missionaries. 

This church has borne a liberal part in furnish- 
ing a pious and educated Ministry. At an early 
period a deep interest was felt in the Education 
Cause, especially in reference to the Christian 
Ministry ; and great exertions and sacrifices have 
been made, particularly by some of the prominent 
men in this Church in its behalf, as the history 
of the "Bloomfield Academy" for a long course of 
years testifies. t Comparatively a large number 
of the children and converts of this Church have 

* Since this date we have made our annual collection for the 
Home Missionary Society, amounting to $260, which is an advance 
of more than 50 per cent, on any previous one ; and for the Edu- 
cation Cause $164, an advance of nearly 100 per cent. 

f This Academy has done good service to the cause of ministe- 
rial education. It was built in 1809 — a large and stately brick 



86 PLEA FOE THE OLD FOUNDATIONS. 



gone forth into the world to preach the Gospel. 
Most of these are still living, some of them at a 
very advanced age ; and of none of them, so far 

edifice — at a very heavy expense. It has helped to educate a 
great number of young men for the ministry. In the palmy days 
of the Education Society, it was under their control, and from 
25 to 30 beneficiaries were constantly sustained in connection with 
it. For several years while Rev. Ainzi Armstrong, D. D., had the 
charge of it, nearly or quite an equal number of candidates for 
the ministry was enrolled among its students. Not a few minis- 
ters received the most of their education here, both collegiate 
and theological. It was in its best days substantially a " School 
of the Prophets." The late excellent William J. Armstrong, 
D. D., with others scarcely less useful, studied divinity here, under 
the direction of his father, assisting him meanwhile in the Acade- 
my. Many of these pious students, too, were directly assisted 
while studying here, in the way of board, and otherwise, by the 
liberality of numerous Christian families. 

Notwithstanding the loss of the original stock, in the day of 
trial when the building had to be sold, there were individuals here, 
animated by a noble Christian spirit, who secured it for the in- 
terest for which it was at first reared, and then for a nominal sum, 
$1500 of which were raised by subscription in Bloomfield, made 
it over to the Education Society. And when the embarrassments 
of that Society and other causes, after years of very successful 
operation, rendered its sale again necessary, a few individuals 
by their liberality saved it once more to the cause of sound Chris- 
tian education, when liberal offers too were made from other 
sources. So that, to say nothing of the enterprise and liberality 
which have been put forth in connection with your other noble 
Educational Establishments, Bloomfield has early and constantly 
shown a high appreciation of the cause of Christian Education. 
Few places, of its size and wealth, I apprehend, have done as 
much in this way. 

Many years ago a benevolent member of this Church also gave 



PLEA FOR THE OLD FOUNDATIONS. 87 



as my knowledge extends, have you reason to be 
ashamed.* 

A Revival Church must also be a Missionary 
Church. And I bless God that you ara bound to 
the great work of Missions by living ties of affec- 
tion, and by tender memories of past sacrifices, 
as well as by religious duty. As early as 1820 a 

$1000 as a permanent fund to assist in educating pious young 
men for the ministry, in connection with the Bloomfield Academy, % 
This fund is still good and available, although at present we have 
no beneficiary to enjoy it. Several have already been helped 
into the ministry by it. 

* I had not the time for a thorough investigation on this point. 
There are enrolled on the Records of the Bloomfield Church, the 
names of nearly fifty, who are known to have entered the ministry. 
A portion of these were from abroad, who came to reside here, 
having already made a profession, or to receive their education at 
the Bloomfield Academy. The following persons, however, (and 
doubtless the list is far from being complete.) may with strict pro- 
priety be called the children of this Church, and with one or two 
exceptions, made a profession of religion in connection with it, 
viz. : 



Stephen Dodd, 
Enos A. Osborn, 
Michael Osborn, 
George D. Armstrong, 
Samuel L. Tattle, 
Thomas S. Ward, 
John Ward. 
Joseph Yance. 
Frederick F. Judd. 
William S. Leavitt. 



Stephen G. Dodd, 
Edward M. Dodd, 
Caleb C. Baldwin, 
Phillip Karbach. 



Stephen D. Ward, 
James Adams, 



Oliver Crane, 
Marcus Crane, 



Daniel Crane, 
Noah Crane, 



88 PLEA FOR THE OLD FOUNDATIONS. 

female missionary went from you to the Osage 
Indians. And since then, six more have gone 
to the heathen, making in all seven — four male 
and three female missionaries, all but two of 
whom I believe are still living.^ 

Six or seven of our members are, at the present 
time, pursuing their studies with the ministry in 
view, and one of them at least the missionary 
work. 

VII. Indirect Fruits. 

The influence of this Church on this entire com- 
munity can never be fully told. The Past and 
the Future, to the end of time, will owe it a debt 
which can never be paid. For more than fifty 
years it has stood here alone, cultivating, unaided 
by any sister church, t this beautiful valley- — first 

* The following are 4 the names, viz. : 

Miss Mary Weller, to the Osage Indian?, in 1820. 

Rev. Nathaniel M. Crane, to India, 1836. 

Mrs. Morrison, (Anna Maria "Ward,) to India, 1837. 

Rev. Caleb C. Baldwin, ) tQ ^a, 1847- 

Mrs. Baldwin, (Harriet F. Fairchild,) ) 

Rev. Oliver Crane, to the Armenians, in 1849. 

Rev. Edward M. Dodd, to the Jews of Thessalonica, in 1849. 

f Recently a Baptist Church was organized, and the Methodist* 
are now building a church €difice. 



PLEA FOR THE OLD FOUNDATIONS. 89 



and chief among the means of your prosperity — 
the ornament of your attractive village — and send- 
ing out its intelligent and stable piety, and its 
sanctified and systematized influences over all 
this community. It early gave a decided reli- 
gious character to the place, and it has main- 
tained it until now. It has given a high tone to 
public morals. It has nursed and developed the 
elements of a steady and permanent prosperity. 
It has given you a reputation abroad for order, 
sobriety, intelligence, and social virtue, which 
few rural towns so contiguous to the great Centre 
of corruption, can boast of. It has made Bloom- 
field really one of the most desirable places I know 
of, without meaning to flatter you, for Christian 
Parents to send their children to for their educa- 
tion, away from temptation, and under strong 
moral and religious influences. 

Liberal as your expenditures have been, you 
have already been repaid in this world a hundred- 
fold. How many of your children it has kept from 
ruin ; what an amount of ignorance, pauperism, 
crime, and taxes it has prevented ; what enhanced 
value it has given to property ; what peace, quiet 
and thrift shed over your families, none but God 



90 PLEA FOR THE OLD FOUNDATIONS. 

can fully estimate. Such foundations as yours 
are, are ivorth a great deal more than they cost, to 
any people. 

Add to these fruits the direct results — the souls 
converted — the souls quickened and trained for 
heaven — the souls comforted and helped on their 
weary way towards a better land — the seed sown 
in the minds of the thousands of youth from 
abroad, and others, through the agency of this 
Church — the ministers and missionaries it has 
aided to furnish — and the money it has given to 
spread the Gospel in the earth, and you may well 
rejoice to-day with a holy rejoicing, and wet these 
old and blessed foundations with tears of heart- 
felt gratitude and renewed dedication. 

VIII. Your Present Position. 

A past kind Providence has conducted you to a 
strong, elevated, and most responsible position. 
If your fathers, in their infancy and feebleness, 
could accomplish so much, with their spirit of 
piety and consecration, and their activity and self- 
sacrifice, what might you not do, now that you 
have waxed strong, and reached the period of ma- 
tured and virtuous manhood ? Save a few petty 



PLEA FOR THE OLD FOUNDATIONS. 



91 



jealousies and strifes, which are unworthy of such 
a history and people, all these elements are at 
peace. Unembarrassed by debt — with one of the 
most beautiful, durable, and commodious temples 
in the State, this day to be re-dedicated — with the 
largest membership of any Church of our order in 
this region — with augmented and augmenting 
resources — with the prospect of an increased 
population — with the example and memories of 
the Past to stimulate — and above *all with the 
strong arm of Jehovah as your hope, and the 
Holy Spirit for your salvation, degenerate and 
unfaithful shall we prove ourselves, if we seize not 
upon our advantage, and make the Future bright 
and rich with the fruit of our labor. 

Oh ! there comes down upon our minds and 
consciences to-day the weight of a great and 
anxious question. Shall we henceforth sustain 
the vigor and life of these foundations ? Shall we 
rally again strong in the place hallowed by such 
memories, and the birth-place of so many saints 
now in glory, and to which turn the thoughts of 
many a weary son and daughter toiling on other 
foundations, and in far-off heathen lands, and here 
give to the God of the Abrahamic covenant the 



92 PLEA FOR THE OLD FOUNDATION'S. 

homage of true and undivided hearts, and a 
service unstinted and untiring ? 

A new chapter is begun in your public history 
this day. What results shall it chronicle ? Shall 
it be a book of " Lamentations," the materials of 
which some future weeping Jeremiah shall dig up 
out of the ruins of all this prosperity and hope 
which we have dwelt upon to-day ; or shall it be 
a record embalmed in the grateful memories of 
thousands of future converts, rising up to call you 
blessed, and a record rejoiced over in heaven by 
the united throng of redeemed ones here born for 
heaven ? 

IX. Closing Remarks. 

I cannot close this Discourse, already greatly 
extended, without touching upon two or three of 
the many lessons which this review has unfolded 
to us. "We see that — 

3 . Church relations are a matter of no small 
importance to us and to our children. There is a 
sentiment extensively prevalent among Christian 
people, that in choosing a place of public worship 
and church privileges, the main points to be 
settled are: ;i Is the minister the man of our 



PLEA FOR THE OLD FUONDATIONS. 93 



choice ? Is the Gospel preached and believed 
there ? Are the church members pious and good 
people? 5 ' But there are other points quite as 
essential. "What ' foundations' have been laid? 
What system of doctrine and of government is re- 
cognized ? "What is the spirit, the manner of life, 
the settled policy, maintained by it? Is it based 
on the broad, vital, fundamental principles of 
Christianity, or on some ecclesiastical dogma, or 
rite, or denominational peculiarity? What has 
been its history ? What rational hope is there of 
its infusing the real life of Christianity into the 
soul, and of wisely and intelligently^ indoctrina- 
ting and guiding us, and our children, and chil- 
dren's children, into the right way?" It is not, 
after all, so much the minister, who may die or 
leave to-morrow, as it is the stable and continued 
4 'foundations," — the moulding power of the Sys- 
tem of faith and ecclesiastical life which they put 
themselves under, that forms the religious views 
and character of our worshippers. 

With the History of this Church before your 
minds, I feel warranted in saying to any who 
may be without a home in the Sanctuary, "Come 
with us, and we will do thee good?" Our foun- 



94 PLEA FOR THE OLD FOUNDATIONS. 

dations, as we believe, are the essential doctrines 
of the evangelical system. They are broad, solid, 
Christian, and vital with the savor of godliness, 
and the spirit of revivals, and sanctified intelli- 
gence and influence. The workings and results, 
and the smiles of Providence, for more than half a 
century past, are this Church's pledges, with 
God's promises, for the future. They are tried 
and permanent foundations, which righteous men 
have laid, and by which Grod has wrought such 
wonders for this people. 

Intimately connected with this, is the idea of a 
home, a right, an interest, in the house of Grod. 
There is moral power in such an investment. It 
is a good thing to identify one's name and pro- 
perty and example with such foundations. It 
strengthens attachment to them. It seems to 
give permanency to one's religious hopes and inter- 
ests. It is a blessed thing, often, for our children to 
know that their parents made such a provision for 
their spiritual good. For one, I shall not be will- 
ing to be put off with only " the minister's seat." 
I want a home of myoz^mhere, for my family, come 
over me what changes there may.. The Church 
is the emblem of Heaven. And who would not 



PLEA FOR THE OLD FOUNDATIONS. 



95 



have a seat there for himself and his gathered 
family ? All without is change, decay, disquiet, 
storm; but this is the soul's earthly "rest" 
where Hope drops her fastenings, and waits in 
peace for immortal day. 

2. This review furnishes affecting evidence of 
God's Covenant faithfulness. The Covenant which 
underlies the Church of (rod on earth, was made 
with Abraham as the head and representative of 
his " household." This "'household" feature is 
one of the peculiar and marked features of that 
'•everlasting Covenant," (G-en. xvii. ;) and constant 
reference is made to it, both in the Old Testament 
and in the New. This Covenant was in accord- 
ance with that Law of Providence which had made 
the Family Constitution the sole agency in origin- 
ally planting and in perpetuating the true reli- 
gion in the world until that period. It was also in 
harmony with that Divine purpose which now 
chose one Family from among mankind as the 
Covenant Head and Type of the universal family 
of believers. Any construction of that Covenant, 
therefore, which destroys this "'household " feature 
of it, and makes it strictly and only individual in 



96 PLEA FOR THE OLD FOUNDATIONS. 

its character, is false, and takes away one of the 
corner-stones of the Christian fabric. 

That Covenant embraces our children, il the 
s seed" of the righteous, in its special provisions and 
graces. We are encouraged by its promises and 
relations to expect and labor for their conversion. 
And the Records of this Church testify, with a voice 
which cannot deceive, that G-od has had " respect 
unto his Covenant." Instead of the fathers he has 
raised up the children. (Ps. xlv. 16.) Saving grace 
has here operated mainly along the line of a right- 
eous seed, and of sealing ordinances. 

Take one fact : Of the 895 members received 
into this Church on profession, 716 were baptized 
in infancy or childhood, on the faith of their pa- 
rents — exactly four-fifths of the whole number ! 
This is a most significant and instructive item of 
your history. In the face of such a fact, in what 
light must we view the ridicule often cast on " in- 
fant baptism," and the reasonings urged against it? 
Would the Grod of truth have put such marked 
honor upon parental faith and consecration during 
all this period, if the arrangement was not a Scrip- 
tural one, based on the Covenant made with our 
father Abraham, and transmitted through the 



PLEA FOR THE OLD FOUNDATIONS. 97 

Jewish Church into the Christian Church ? u Let 
God be true/' — let his Providence be believed, 
though it make "every man a liar/' (Rom. iii. 4.) 
and falsify our most confident reasonings, and 
knock away our foundations. 

Finally. This review shows us in a strong light 
the value and power of associated influence. This is 
another of the great laws of Providence. l\ T o mat- 
ter what moral or religious elements exist in a 
community, they are not made effective for exten- 
sive and permanent good unless combined. Such is 
the strength of sin in the world ; by such united 
and compact agencies is it upheld and spread ; such 
a vital organic life has it come to Dossess, that the 
feeble blows of a single arm are not felt ; indivi- 
dual influence alone cannot cope with It with any 
rational hope of success. The righteous must 
unite their strength. The separate stones of truth 
and piety must be brought together and laid down 
in broad and massive foundations, and laid one 
upon another. 

It is on the principle of associated influence that 
God has founded the three radical Agencies for 
good which he has established and perpetuated ou 
5 



98 



PLEA FOR THE OLD FOUNDATIONS. 



earth, the Family, the State and the Church. Had 
your fathers wrought here singly, what could they 
have done ? Their efficiency, the power of their 
influence, lay in union — -in concert of action — in 
building over against each other's " foundations." 
Thus they built up here the Kingdom of God. 
Thus one generation joins on to another, like the 
links of an endless chain— the life of individuals, 
and families, and ages, blending into one continuous 
line of power, and that power all the while increas- 
ing, and perpetuating itself, by the laws of moral 
development and growth. 

Brethren ; I invite you to-day to plant your feet 
anew on these blessed foundations. Grird your- 
selves for another race. More than fifty years of 
memorable scenes and triumphs are looking down 
upon you from the heights of your favored Zion. 
Fill your minds with the stirring facts of your 
history. Baptize your souls with the spirit of it. 
Prove yourselves equal to the duty which it lays 
upon you. 

There is the power of an ever-expanding and 
augmenting life in these old " foundations." Every 
one of these sixteen past revivals has helped to give 



PLEA FOR THE 



OLD FOUNDATIONS. 



99 



vitality and breadth to them. The prayers and 
tears of your sainted dead are their memorials be- 
fore Grod. May the Spirit of the Highest, who has 
so often deigned to honor these walls with his gra- 
cious presence, renew and multiply his memor- 
able triumphs, until the converts to righteousness 
here shall outnumber the stones in your earthly 
temple ! Here let the voice of Eternal Truth speak 
to dying sinners in the name of Jesus Christ ; and, 
responsive to its appeals, let streams of penitence 
here flow while there are sins on earth to be for- 
given ; and streams of life here go forth to make 
glad the earth while there are moral wildernesses to 
be reclaimed. And when the great day of Jubilee 
has come, and Christ's redeemed ones have all been 
gathered home to glory, let the builders of these 
" foundations," gathering round them all who have 
wrought upon them, and all who have been won 
to life by means of them, say with exulting joy : 
"Behold, ive, and the children multitudinous, 
ivhom God hath given us" Amen, 




[I have taken the liberty to append, in order to pre- 
serve it, a part of a MS. History of Bloomfield, prepared by 
the Rev. Stephen Dodd, of East Haven, Conn., who has 
shown a highly commendable zeal in seeking out and 
recording matters of interest connected with your early 
history. I give only that part of it which is directly 
connected with your parish and church matters. — j. m. s.] 

LOCAL XAMES. 

It had been the practice for many years to use the 
word Wardsesson, supposing that it was derived from 
some person or family by the name of Ward. But this 
was a palpable mistake. The real name was of Indian 
origin. Watssessing, Watsesson, written in both forms 
in the ancient records of Newark ; but the first is doubt- 
less the correct spelling. It was first used with reference 
to the School-house Hill and the adjacent Plains, as 
formerly named. Thus the ancient deeds of our ancestor, 
Daniel Dodd, and his brother, Samuel Dodd, the grand- 
father of the late Aaron Dodd, mention Watsessing Hill, 
Watssessing Plains, as also some other records. And, 
were I a resident of Bloomfield, I would use my influence 
to have the old Indian name revived — Watsessing Hill, 
School-house, &c. The neighborhood north of the Meet- 
ing-house was once called Crab Orchard, from the crab- 
apple trees which were standing there in the time of the 
first settlers. The young men tried to introduce the name 
Hopewell, but did not succeed. 

Crane Town was a name early given to that tract 
under the mountain, settled by the Crane families from 
Newark. The two first were brothers, Azariah and Na- 
thaniel. Azariah, the grandfather of Aaron and my 

(100) 



APPENDIX. 



101 



mother, lived abaut where Elias B. Crane resided ; the 
brother of Azariah, and father of William and Noah, lived 
where Major Crane died. 

Under these circumstances, our fathers thought it ex- 
pedient to attempt to introduce some general name to 
apply to all the ground covered by the proposed Ecclesi- 
astical Congregation. For this purpose they held several 
meetings for consultation, which resulted as follows. 

In the Sentinel of Freedom, of Dec. 7, 1796, I find 
the following notices : 

"At a numerous meeting of the Congregation of Ward- 
sesson, Oct. 13, 1796; Joseph Davis, Esq., in the Chair ; 

" It appearing that, agreeably to a resolution of a 
meeting held the 10th inst., advertisements have been 
set up in three of the most public places within the 
bounds of the Congregation, notifying the objects of the 
present meeting ; the members proceeded to choose a 
name by which the society should be distinguished, when 
it appeared that the name of Bloomfield had a large 
majority of votes. 

"Extract from the minutes. 

ISAAC W. CRANE, Secretary." 

"At a meeting of the Trustees of the Wardsesson Con- 
gregation, Oct. 26, 1796 ; 

"Agreeably to a resolution of the Congregation, the 
Trustees, having met this day, do assume to themselves 
the name- and title of The Trustees of the Presbyterian 
Society of Bloom field. 

" Extract from the minutes. 

ISAAC DODD, President." 

To the preceding I will add, from memory, in which l t 
may be incorrect, that Isaac Watts Crane being acquaint- 
ed with Gen. Bloomfield of Burlington, a man of wealth, 
and having no children, thought it might be policy to 
take his name and engage his generosity towards this 
child of adoption. And, as it will appear in the sequel, 
the plan produced some good fruit. This plan was car- 



102 



APPENDIX. 



ried out by giving Gen. Bloomfield suitable notice of 
what bad been done respecting the adoption of his name, 
accompanied with a present of a barrel of fine cider, the 
produce of Bloomfield. This plan also drew from him 
the promise of a visit, as will appear presently, 

THE CORKER-STONE* 

I left home, to enter Union College, Sep. 12, 1796. 
At that date nothing had been done at the Meeting-house. 
The ground, even, had not been broken. — I have often 
regretted the mistake made in placing the date, 1796, on 
the slab over the door ; by what authority I know not. 
The history of that transaction, so far as recollection 
serves me, is, in substance, as follows : The quarry - 
men who had supplied a certain stone-cutter's shop in New 
York with a large quantity of principal stone, solicited 
him (the name I have lost, unless it was Lindsey & 
Knox) for a marble slab to place in the niche prepared 
for that purpose, with a suitable engraving, which he 
agreed to do. It was prepared at the shop in New York, 
and two workmen came over with it and put it in its 
place. It is my impression that the slab was a donation 
from the New York shop. 

Having done this, the workmen engaged in dressing 
and laying the two platforms at the middle and west 
doors. I saw them more than once at the work, and I 
think it was done in the year 1800 or 1801. And the 
history of those capital stones is this : They were quarried 
in the Harrison quarry, the two being one stone, and 
when got out measured 19 by 7 feet, or thereabouts. I 
write from memory. It was designed to be laid whole in 
front of the steeple. They slung it under a long wagon, 
but the timbers bending under the weight after moving a 
little way with it, the stone dragged on the ground. They 
had to stop ; and, in letting down one end, in order to get 
a new purchase and raise the stone higher, it broke with 
its own weight. They then slung the parts under two 
wagons, and brought them safely to the place for dressing. 



APPENDIX, 



103 



Respecting the date, 1796, I remark: That it was in 
contemplation to erect a plain wooden house, and which 
was called a temporary building* till they became able to 
erect a more durable bouse. For this purpose the join- 
ers went to Springtield and examined the Meeting-house 
in that place, and returned with the conclusion to advise 
the Society to build one somewhat similar to it. And 
accordingly the trench was opened for the foundation, 
about three or four rods from the south-west corner of the 
present house. And my uncle, Jairus Dodd, went to 
work in the making of the sashes for the windows — a 
pile of these I saw in my grandfathers old barn. He re- 
moved west of Uiica in Oct.. 1796. But Simeon Bald- 
win and a few others* remonstrated against this plan, 
saying this would be a permanent temporary house until 
it rotted down. Mr. Baldwin, especially, said, I shall do 
nothing for this house ; for, as I have no children. I want 
to place my property in a more durable house, which 
may do good to future generations. And hence they 
came to the harmonious and wise conclusion, to erect the 
present stone temple. These matters occurred in the year 
1796 ; and from these circumstances originated (I con- 
jecture) the date on the slab. 1196. 

In addition to the above, I remark, that the stone for 
the house was got from the quarry of David Morris, and 
from that now partly covered by the water of D. Brom- 
ley's saw-mill rond. There was an old stone grist-mill 
standing on the ground where Vandyke's chocolate-mill 
was erected : the proprietors of that gave it to the Society 
for the use of their building. The stone was removed 
accordingly, and the roof was ma le use of for a lime and 
mortar house ; and when the masonry was done, it was 
sold, with the other materials left, at auction, and now 
constitutes the rafters and gable- ends of Aaron Pierson's 
barn. 

EAYIXG OF THE CORXER-STOXE. . 

In the spring of 1797, the work was commenced in 
earnest. Materials were collected, the trench was dug 



104 



APPENDIX," 



for tlie foundation, and the dimensions of the walls giver? 
out. But when the work began, the masons were directed, 
privately, to crowd the foundation to the outside of the 
trench, which was large, and thus some addition was 
gained to the size of the building, as first contemplated 
for with some the cry was, The house will be too large — 
we shall never be afcle to fill it — we can never finish it, 
nor pay for it. Were these predictions verified ? 

Well, according to modern fashion, (of Free Mason 
origin,) a corner-stone must be laid with religious cere- 
monies, by one of the pastors of that congregation. This, 
was Dr. McWhorter, (a Free Mason, too ; though, I sup- 
pose, none of the people thought of that, for I believe 
there was not a Free Mason in all the congregation.) 
This transaction took place on Monday. May 8th, 1797. 
I happen to have some old papers in my trunk that are 
my guide. The first Commencement of Union College 
took place the first Wednesday in May, being the 3d day 
of the month, '91. On Thursday I paid money on account,, 
the receipt for which is dated May 4 ; I took ship at Al- 
bany next day, and arriving on the Monday following at 
home, about midday, found the family preparing to go 
to the laying of the corner-stone. Being fatigued with my 
journey, I did not go. I have also found in a memoran- 
dum-book of a dear friend, now deceased, this entry for 
the year 1797, viz : " May 8th : Monday, pleasant — wind 
westerly. I went to Bloomfield, to the laying of thecor- 
ner- stone of the new Meeting -house P With whom and 
family, that same evening, I had conversation on the 
transactions of the day. 

The work was regularly commenced a few days after 
this ceremony, as appears from a notice in the Sentinel 
of June 14, 1797, as follows : 

"Communication from Bloomfield. — The head work- 
men, mechanics and laborers, employed at Bloomfield 
Meeting-house, take this public way of expressing their 
acknowledgments to Deacon Morris and Mrs. Morris, 



APPENDIX. 



105 



for their polite and agreeable repast of eake and cider 
which they gratuitously afforded to them (who were 40 
in number) at the laying of the corner-stone of the said 
building, and cannot refrain from expressing a hope that 
this new method of laying corner stoi.es may be adopted 
on all similar occasions. The building goes on rapidly." 

I do not know, or recollect, to what particular transac- 
tion this refers. I suppose it refers to the laying of 
the first course of ashlers. But I remember that when 
they were ready to lay the water-table, boss King got the 
first stone ready on the south-west homer. In the mean- 
time, they had despatched a messenger to Col. Cadmus, 
requesting his presence and aid in laying this first corner- 
stone of the water-table. He was animated — walked off 
with speed, and was there presently. The stone was 
placed in due order ; a hammer was placed in his hand, 
and he performed the service, and laid down on it a sil vet- 
dollar. I saw the dollar, and heard it ring — it was grog- 
money. Returning to college a few days after, I saw no 
more of the building till October of that year ; when the 
main rafters having been raised, they were filling up the 
spaces and preparing to put on the shingles ; and having 
put on the roof, the work was suspended. 

It may not be useless to remark that, in order to raise 
the heavy timbers of the roof with safety, and have a 
proper stage for the plastering of the arch, a complete 
floor was laid all over the building, level with the top of 
the side walls ; and when the raising was over, tables 
were spread thereon, and men. women, and children 
marched up the gangway and took dinner on the top of 
the walls of the house. 

The Trustees of this year, 1797, were Samuel Ward, 
Ephraim Mtffris, Oliver Crane, and Joseph Davis. The 
Managers of the building were Simeon Baldwin, ISTa- 
thaniel Crane, and Joseph Davis — all dead ! The head 
workmen were Aury King, of the masons ; Samuel 
Ward, architect. But David Jarnes, of Newark, having 



108 



APPENDIX, 



already a draught of the house, was soon employed, 
who continued in superintendence till the house was 
finished. — Rev. Calvin White was employed about a year, 
as a supply ; about which time it was discovered that he 
was preparing to take orders in the Prelatical Church, 
and was discharged. He sunk in the estimation of 
Christians, and of the community generally ; for, at the 
very time he was employed at B., his name was on the 
JSTew York Prelate's Register, as a candidate for his ordi- 
nation. He spent several years in that connection and 
then, I think, about thirty years since, he avowed his con- 
version to Popery. He now resides in Derby, a hoary- 
headed papist. 

I now return a little back to notice another transaction 
of considerable importance, taken from the Sentinel of 
July 12, 1W. 

" Communication from Bloomfield. — On Thursday* 
the 6th inst., Maj. Gen. Bloomfield and his lady made a 
visit to the Society of Bloomfield. They were escorted 
from Orange by Lieut. Baldwin's (Jesse ?) division of 
cavalry, and other gentlemen, to the house of Joseph 
Davis, Esq., where they were received by a numerous 
concourse of people belonging to the Society, A pro- 
cession was then formed in the following order : 

" The farmers, headed by Col. Cadmus and Mr. Timo- 
thy Ward ; the masons and laborers ; the trustees and 
managers ; the venerable clergy ; Gen. Bloomfield and 
suite ; the battalion officers ; Lieut. Baldwin's division of 
horsemen ; forty young ladies uniformly dressed in white, 
their heads neatly ornamented with turbans and corona 
hedera, crowned with ivy, besides two hundred young 
children belonging to the schools of Bloomfield ; and in the 
rear of the whole, Capt. Crane's elegant company of in- 
fantry, giving the procession a dignified appearance. The 
procession being thus formed, proceeded to the new 
stone church and from thence to a large bower, prepared 
for the occasion, where a prayer was made by the Rev. 
Mr. White, adapted to the occasion ; and anthems were 



APPENDIX. 



107 



sung by forty young ladies, uniformly dressed in white. 
Gen. Bloomfield, from an eminence, addressed the assem- 
bly, recommending the virtues of patriotism and of politi- 
cal and Christian union. An answer was returned by Mr. 
Watts Crane in behalf of the Society, reechoing the same 
sentiments. Before Gen. Bloomfield left the place, he 
presented the Society with the very liberal donation of 
$140, for the purpose of assisting them in building their 
new church ; and made provision for adding 100 vol- 
umes to the Bloomfield Library. Mrs. Bloomfield pre- 
sented them with a very elegant gilt Bible." 

[For an interesting account of " the providential effi- 
cacy of the 8140 donation from General Bloomfield," 
which Mr. Dodd has given here, see note on p. 58. 

J. M. S.] 

In the summer of 1799 we held our meetings in the 
house, before the windows were in or the floors were laid. 
Pride bad not then forbidden our assembling in such a 
humble style. And as we had supplies for preaching 
only a part of the time, worship was conducted by the 
officers of the church, and 1 read the sermons ; and we 
had precious seasons, for we had the presence of the Lord. 
The plastering was done that year, I think : the rubbish 
was cleared out, and the windows being put in, we could 
meet more comfortably, especially after the floors were 
laid; so that the house, in the course of the year 1800, 
was furnished with slips, pews, &c. 

Another incidental anecdote may be mentioned, for the 
purpose of showing the youth and children how some 
things were done in a small way, with a little personal 
enterprise. In the fall of 1800 the pulpit was built ; 
and when nearly ready for use, David Pierson being at 
my father's in the evening, we all entered into conversa- 
tion about it. And the question came up, " How shall 
the pulpit be dressed, and by what means ?" I took pen 
in hand, and wrote three subscriptions to be circulated 
next day. The next morning I sent one to Stephen 



108 



APPENDIX. 



Ford ham, the second to Nathaniel Bruen, and with the 
third I started myself— a snowy day — and went through 
the north section of the Society, as far as Ephraim Cocke- 
fair's, and then by Newtown home. That evening, or the 
following, Mr. Fordham called upon me to compare the 
results, and to consult what further should be done. We 
had collected over $30. I find, by a receipt he gave me 
that evening, that I had collected $15.40. It was then 
concluded that Mr. F. should go the next day to New 
York, and purchase damask silk for the pulpit. He 
accordingly went to New York, and searched the dry 
goods shops, but could not find the article. Finally, he 
was informed that a certain ancient lady had a gown of 
that description, and she might probably be persuaded 
to sell it for that object. He was introduced ; made a 
bargain; and paid $30 for the gown, done up in the 
highest style of ancient days. Mr. Fordham mounted 
his horse with his prize and returned. In a few days the 
ladies suficiently skilled in such work convened ; the 
gown was carefully- demolished, and was found to contain 
enough cloth for two dresses for the pulpit. My wife, 
being skilled in such work, took charge of it, and all 
assisting, the pulpit was handsomely dressed, and the 
Bible and Psalm-book laid in order upon it. 

The first school-house was erected on the hill nearly a 
hundred years ago ; it was enlarged at the east end while 
I. went to school there. 

The school by the Meeting-house was established 
about the same time. A house built by Daniel Dodd, I 
think, son of Thomas, which stood on the little hill east 
of the grist-mill on Branch Brook, was drawn up whole 
and fitted for a school- house, and was afterwards burnt. 
There, a multitude of children were educated, and there, 
in 1785 or 6, and in 1800, I saw and heard and remem- 
ber God's mighty works of grace. Step^n Dodd. 

East Haven, Ct., Feb. 9, 1846. 



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